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Crystal’s breath caught.
“If Charm told me she was afraid of the dark, I’d find a way to keep the fucking sun up. If she told me the sky was too heavy, I’d tear it down piece by piece and carry it somewhere she couldn’t see. That’s how stupid I am for her.”
“That doesn’t sound stupid.”
“It does when loving her almost destroyed me.”
Crystal’s eyes filled again, but I kept going because she asked.
“I would protect her from anybody. I would bleed for her, fight for her, and hand her every piece of me she was willing to hold.”
“But?”
“I can’t force her to hold it, and I can’t trust her not to drop it again.”
The admission hurt worse than everything dramatic that came before it.
Crystal pressed her lips together.
“I loved Charm enough to believe I could carry both of us,” I said. “I couldn’t. Eventually, I became the only one fighting for what we both claimed mattered.”
“She’s fighting now.”
“I know.”
“And you see it.”
“I see everything.”
“That frightens you.”
“You asked whether I love her. Don’t push your luck.”
Crystal accepted the warning.
“I can respect the woman she fought to become. I can be grateful she got healthy without pretending treatment bought her another chance with me. Those are different things.”
“I understand.”
“The problem was never that she was sick. The problem was that I gave her my heart, told her exactly what would break it, and watched her do it anyway.”
Crystal’s tears slipped free. “You really did see her,” she whispered.
“Every side she allowed me to see.”
“And you loved all of them.”
The answer was out before I could protect it. “I still do.”
The words left me exposed enough that I immediately wanted them back, but Crystal didn’t reach for them or try to turn them into hope. She didn’t tell me Charm loved me too, and she didn’t ask whether hearing myself say it changed anything about Sunday.
She only nodded.
“I wish I had given you a chance,” she said. “I wish I had listened before I helped make everything harder. Maybe all our lives would be different.”
“Maybe. Or Charm and I would’ve found another way to fuck it up because loving somebody doesn’t automatically make you capable of standing beside them. We don’t get to rewrite the past into something prettier because the ending hurt.”
“No.”
