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‘Ethics.’

‘Who’s right?’

‘Neither of us are particularly righteous, but if I had to place my bets…’ It’d be on her. He doesn’t finish.

This does not bode well for me.

‘Walker.’

He looks at me like he’s bracing for a hit. ‘I’m selfish. You should know that.’ He starts tapping his fingers to his thumb on his left hand.

‘And?’

‘A better man would walk away.’

Such a sharp thing to say, it cuts clean through me. ‘Is that what this is? You walking away?’

‘Miller.’

‘Because if it is, you could at least do something cool like disappear in a cloud of shadows or turn into a giant squid and pretend to ink and swim away. Or… or…’

‘I’m not going to leave you in a cloud of smoke. I’m not walking away. Or swimming, for that matter.’

‘Oh,’ I squeak.

I can breathe. I can breathe without the pain now. But fuck I’m weak. He’s a walking red flag. He’s admittedly selfish, unkind, ruthless, and I already knew his ethics are always caught lacking. I don’t care.

He’s led me back to the place in the forest where it’s pretty and clean.

Walker takes a deep breath, the topic of conversation obviously unsettling to him. I decide to change the subject. I don’t like where this conversation is heading. You don’t need to be a genius to know Walker’s foreboding brooding and his and Lavender’s earlier conversation don’t exactly spell happily ever after. Something is going on. I’m not stupid.

But I am a coward.

So, when I see him look up at the sky and brace himself to say whatever it is he doesn’t want to say, I strike.

‘Can you feel this?’ I pick up his hand and run my fingertip along the edge of his palm.

‘Yes,’ he says. He sounds about as strong as I am.

‘This?’ I stand on tiptoes to brush a kiss against the sharp, lightly stubbled line of his jaw.

‘Yes.’ His breath catches. I’ve never loved anything more broken before.

‘What about thi—’ His hand snatches mine and pulls me into him. Every soft part of my body clashes with his unrelenting nature. He is the sea, and I am the wind. Nothing can hold us. Not even each other. But we can pretend, for a while, at least.

‘I need to tell you something.’ He doesn’t look like he wants to tell me. In fact, he doesn’t look like he wants to talk at all. His long lashes hide his eyes when he looks down to our clasped hands.

‘Is it kind?’ I ask, drawing circles in the centre of the palm I’ve pried open.

‘No.’ He traps my finger in his fist.

No longer hiding his eyes, I can see that he’s right. Whatever it is swimming in his head and about to leave his lips is not kind at all. It’ll be mean, and it will hurt. I’d wager, it’d hurt us both. Life is full of that – hurt. I’m only just learning death is too. It’s full of hurt, and it has so little happiness. I try to find it wherever I can but it’s hard. So when he looks at me like this – like I might have a choice in whether I hear the truth and hurt, or live the lie a little longer, I do not choose bravely. I do not do the right thing, or what I ‘should’. I do what comes easy.

‘Don’t say it.’

‘Miller, you don’t know⁠—’

‘I don’t want to.’