“Yes,” he says.
“Then why —”
“Because you would have,” he says. “Because you would have held it without hesitating and it would have crushed you and I couldn’t stand to watch that happen. I couldn’t stand to be the thing that did that to you.”
• • •
“You did it anyway,” I say quietly. “Cassian. You broke me anyway.”
Silence.
He looks at me.
“I know,” he says.
This time I let it land.
Because this time it’s not deflection.
This time it’s the truest thing he knows how to say.
I look at him for a long moment.
This person I have known my entire life.
This person I don’t fully know at all.
“I love you,” I say. “I need you to hear that. Whatever else I say — I love you and I’m not going anywhere and none of what happened to you changes that. None of it.”
He nods.
Small.
Like he’s not sure he’s allowed to accept it.
“But I’m angry,” I say. “I’m allowed to be angry.”
“Yeah,” he says. “You are.”
“I was here. I was always right here. You could have trusted me. Like I trusted you with my entire world.
With the heart you kept breaking. You should have told me.”
“I know.”
“And I’m sorry.” My voice breaks on it. “I’m so sorry that happened to you. I’m so sorry you were just a kid and alone in that house and no one —”
I can’t finish.
He crosses the space between us.
• • •
We hold each other in the middle of my room.
Not like last night.
Not like the roof or the bathroom or the bathroom or any of the times before.
