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“That does not mean your life was supposed to end with theirs.”

“You do not know what happened.”

“No.” I nodded once. “I know that.”

My voice softened. “And I’m not pretending I do.”

That mattered.

I could see it in the way some of the tension left his jaw.

“But I know you’re still here.”

His eyes dropped to the floor.

I had never seen him look away like that.

Not from threat.

Not from violence.

Not from accusation.

Emotion did what bullets couldn’t.

It destabilized him.

That realization hurt more than I expected.

“You talk about survival like it’s something you stole.”

His gaze remained lowered, fixed on the floor between his boots. “It was not earned.”

I stared at the rigid line of his shoulders. “That is not how survival works.”

“You do not know that.”

“Neither do you.”

His attention lifted, and for a moment I saw the flicker of something raw behind the discipline.

I held it. “You survived. That is all that means.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“They did not.”

“I know.”

A muscle tightened in his jaw, the only movement in his still face. Someone else might have missed the slight tremor in his hands where they rested on his knees. I didn’t. I had gotten too good at reading him.

“You think every year after them has to be spent proving you deserved to keep it.”

His expression shifted—a fractional tightening around the eyes, a breath held a second too long.

Enough.