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That’s the one that almost takes my knees out.

Not because it makes anything better.

Because it doesn’t.

Because he’s standing there telling me the worst thing that ever happened to me wasn’t the reason I deserved to live. It was just the price someone else was made to pay.

“You don’t get to make this clean,” I whisper.

“I’m not.” His voice stays low, rough at the edges. “I’m making it true. I loved you inside the condemnation, Selah. I made the choice. I’ll stand in what it cost.”

“This doesn’t make you right.”

“No.”

“And it doesn’t make me whole.”

“No.”

Silence stretches between us, not empty and not waiting, but settled, like a decision already made somewhere deeper than language.

I turn away because if I look at him any longer, I might break in a direction I can’t undo. The window is cold under my palms, and outside, the trees stand unmoved, unburdened by what happened beneath them.

I hate them for still standing, for being rooted and whole and untouched by a loss that changed the shape of everything in me.

My voice comes low, shaking and steady all at once. “When I decide what you are to me, it won’t be because of this.”

“I know.” Malek’s voice comes from behind me, rough and certain. “It’ll be because you survive it.”

I close my eyes.

Scarlett’s voice rises unbidden, tired and firm and loving.

Don’t let them take you with me.

When I open my eyes again, my hands have stopped shaking.

I turn from the window.

Malek is already watching me.

I don’t tell him what comes next. I don’t have to.

I pick up my coat from the back of the chair and pull it on, one sleeve, then the other, slow enough for the silence to understand I’m finished bleeding in place.

Behind me, Malek moves.

He doesn’t ask where we’re going. He doesn’t ask what this makes us. He doesn’t reach for an answer I’m not ready to give. He simply follows, with the cost still sitting in the room behind us and the truth between us sharp enough to draw blood if either of us tries to hold it wrong.

The fact that he doesn’t ask me to make it easier is the most dangerous thing of all.

XLVII

The Altar Still Provides

Marrow Ridge doesn’t have a heart in the way living places do.

It has a center.