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“You don’t get to decide what I need.”

I look away because she’s right, and I hate that she’s right.

“I’m trying to protect you from something that’s going to be difficult,” I say.

Her expression changes, and the hurt becomes sharper rather than louder.

“Protect me,” she says quietly. “From you?”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“It’s what you’re doing.”

I take a step toward her, but she doesn’t move.

“I can’t give you what you deserve right now,” I say. “I know that.”

“You don’t know what I deserve better than I do.”

“I know what I can give.”

“Then say that,” she replies. “Say you’re overwhelmed. Say you’re scared. Say you don’t know how to do this. But don’t stand here and make the choice for both of us and call it protection.”

Her words hit harder than I expect.

I force myself to stay where I am.

“This isn’t about being scared.”

Blaire looks at me for a long moment.

“Isn’t it?”

I don’t answer.

She shakes her head slowly.

“You did this before. Not like this, but the same pattern. You decide. You explain. Then you act like the decision was inevitable.”

“I’m trying to be practical.”

“No,” she says. “You’re trying to make this feel practical because that’s easier than admitting you’re choosing control.”

The room goes quiet.

I feel every word of that because there is enough truth in it to make me want to argue harder.

Instead, I say, “I didn’t come here to…I don’t want to fight with you.”

Blaire’s voice stays steady. “Neither do I. ”

She looks at me, and I can see how hard she is working not to cry.

“I just wish you’d given me the chance to decide whether this was something that I wanted to fight for too,” she says.

That lands somewhere I can’t immediately defend against. For a second, I nearly tell her everything I’ve been trying not to say.

That I love her.