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The last time⁠—

Oh.

He’s done. His phone’s back in his pocket. He’s looking at me again, and⁠—

Just like that, I think numbly.

Just like that, everything changes.

Because this time, he knows.

He understands our marriage has reached the end of the road⁠—

“You’re free then.”

And there it is.

Free.

The word makes me want to cry, but I somehow manage to keep smiling. “So are you.”

His hand goes into his coat pocket and stays there, curled around something. Is he itching to ask Chadwick to get rid of me⁠—

I catch myself in time.

Don’t be that girl, Kar.

Us separating doesn’t make Ruel a bad person.

He’ll always be the most honorable man I’ve met, and that’s why…

I just have to remember that is exactly why I can’t hold on to him, and so of course...

“T-Thank you.”

I can’t just leave without acknowledging what he’s done—and what he’s given up—for the past eighteen months.

“You didn’t have to save me, but you did. I’m safe and alive because⁠—”

“What are your plans?”

His interruption throws me off, and my mind draws a blank.

Plans?

How does one even start planning when her heart is still in pieces?

“I—”

He only gazes at me with unyielding dark eyes, and I start feeling nervous like I never have around him before. I start feeling insecure like I used to, before I met him.

Get a grip, Kar.

Stop overthinking this.

Just say what’s on your mind.

That’s always how it’s been between us, and that doesn’t have to change. Shouldn’t. If I start pretending with him, then that will just make the distance between us grow, and so⁠—