“It’s deeper now,” I continue. “Quieter. More fulfilling than I imagined. Lena… she was fire. Zaria is steady. I’ve gotten to know Zaria in ways that I hadn’t prior to Lena’s death. Every new thing I learn, I love more. And I feel like I shouldn’t feel that shift.”
Dr. Manning leans back slightly.
“Love evolves,” she says gently. “Even if Lena were alive, your love with Zaria would have grown. That doesn’t diminish what you had with Lena.”
I look down at my hands. “It feels like it does.”
“Because Lena is frozen in memory,” she says. “And Zaria is living.”
That knocks the winds from me momentarily.
Zaria shifts beside me.
“It’s not just him,” she says softly.
Dr. Manning turns to her. “Go on.”
“I feel guilty too,” Zaria admits. “But not just because Lena is gone.”
She inhales deeply.
“I’m distancing myself.”
My head snaps toward her.
“Why?”
She finally looks at me. “Because I don’t want to be hurt.”
The words land like a punch.
“Hurt how?” I ask.
She swallows.
“In case one day you decide this only worked because of Lena. That we were some kind of shared grief bond. That without her, it doesn’t make sense.”
My chest tightens immediately.
“That’s not?—”
“I don’t know that,” she cuts in gently. “You say you love me. I believe you. But what if you wake up one day and realize I remind you too much of her because she was our connector?”
I feel heat rise in my neck.
“That’s not how I see us.”
“But you could,” she says quietly. “And I don’t think I could survive losing you too.”
Dr. Manning looks between us carefully.
“Calil,” she says, “what do you feel hearing that?”
“Hurt. Sad. Some anger,” I admit.
“At her?”
“No.” I shake my head. “At the idea. At the people who’ve caused her so much pain that she feels so easily expendable.”
