And with him:
Stay.
Learn.
Love.
Help him build whatever this healing thing is becoming.
But I don’t say any of that.
Instead, I say the thing that feels truest in this exact moment.
“Now,” I say, “I send three emails. One to ORI accepting their determination and thanking them. One to Laura with a copy of the letter. And one to my parents.”
His brows lift slightly. “To say?” he prompts.
“That I did not break the world by speaking up,” I say. “That I am okay. That I’m… staying. Here. With this work. With you.”
Something flickers in his eyes. “They may not like that,” he says.
“I know,” I answer. “But they can adjust. Or not. The wheel is turning either way.”
He smiles then, fierce pride curling his mouth. “Good,” he says. “Let the wheel turn.”
We stand here for another long, quiet moment while the sanctuary moves around us.
Somewhere a child shrieks with joy as a foam sword “kills” a gladiator for the fiftieth time. Diana shouts about helmets again. A horse snorts. The wind carries the faint scent of rosemary from the garden where a goddess once looked at me and said:You are precisely shaped for what you are becoming.
I believe her.
I step back, just enough to take his hand.
His fingers lace through mine immediately, as though they’ve been waiting their entire second life for this exact pattern.
“Come on,” I say. “Let’s go write those emails.”
He snorts. “Yes! As long as it means I don’t have to read any more forms?”
“Absolutely not,” I assure him. “You’ve done your part. The man with the perfect memory never has to fill out another form in his life.”
He rolls his eyes skyward as though he’s asking the gods why they gave him perfect recall and then decided to park him in a world of email chains.
