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The word is quiet. I take another step toward her. She doesn't move.

"You're afraid of losing control because the last time you couldn't control what happened, you lost everything."

"Stop."

"Your son died. Your parents died. People you loved died, and now you're trying to build walls high enough that death can't get through them again."

"Elena."

"I'm not Nikos."

Silence.

It isn't ordinary silence. It's the kind that follows a gunshot. For several seconds, I don't feel anything at all.

Then the cold comes.

It starts in my chest and spreads outward until every part of me is locked behind something old and familiar.

Elena's face changes immediately. She knows. She knows exactly where she put the knife. But she doesn't take it back.

Good.

I'd despise pity more.

"Don't say his name," I tell her.

My voice doesn't sound angry, but somehow it sounds worse.

She swallows. "I'm sorry that it hurts."

"I said don't."

"But I'm not taking it back."

I turn away from her because the alternative is putting my fist through something, and I have already learned that Elena considers destruction an inefficient communication strategy.

My son's face arrives anyway.

Nikos at six, refusing to eat olives because he'd decided they looked suspicious.

Nikos at eight, racing through this penthouse in socks and nearly breaking his neck on marble.

Nikos asking if I'd be home for dinner.

I wasn't.

There should have been thousands more dinners. There weren't.

"You're right," Elena says behind me. "I'm not him. And I'm not your parents. I'm not Petros. I'm not every person you couldn't save."

I stare through the window.

"You think I don't understand why you're terrified?" she continues. "I do. That's why I'm still standing here instead of walking out."

"I'm not terrified."

"Fine. Call it whatever word lets you sleep."