I look back once at the end of the breezeway.
He’s watching me go, expression unreadable but intent. When our eyes meet, he gives a small nod—almost ceremonial—then turns toward the barracks.
Back in my cabin, I close the door and stand for a moment in the quiet, letting my nervous system catch up.
On the table, my complaint folder waits. Laptop. Notes. Printed emails. The timeline we built together, his memory layered over my obsessive record-keeping.
I sit and open my personal notebook instead—the one that isn’t for data; it’s just for… me.
The page after my last declaration is still blank.
I uncap my pen and write, in neat, uncompromising letters:
They are taking the complaint seriously.I am afraid.I am still glad I filed.
My hand trembles once, then steadies.
Underneath, after a long breath, I add:
I love him.
The words look smaller than the feeling. Ordinary ink trying to contain something enormous. But they’re true, and that matters more than scale.
No caveats. No arrows into pro/con columns. I just sit and let my body register the sentence as fact instead of threat.
Eventually, my heart stops trying to beat its way through my ribs.
On the next line, I write a different heading:
Things I want to ask him (when he’s ready to share)
Not for my framework. Not for academic understanding. For me. Because I love him and I want to know the parts of his story he’s never told anyone.
Under it:
How did you come to be enslaved, and how did you end up in the arena?
What was your first real fight in the arena?
Who taught you to be the Jester?
What did you lose when you learned to make them laugh?
