Page 88 of Split Decision

"The last six months have been hard on both of us," she says. "I know I haven't made things easier. But when you agreed to the two-month arrangement—when you made that decision without telling me—you cut me to the core. Because I never would have done that to you. I would have stood beside you, come hell or high water, because that's what real love does."

My jaw tightens.

"I understand your thought process," she continues. "I understand you believed you were protecting both of us. But you didn't ask me. You decided what I could handle, and you acted on it, and you have to understand what that cost." A pause. "I've had a long time to think through this. On a bus, in a hospital, and in a lot of dark hours I wasn't expecting. And what I've come back to every time is the same answer. What we have is my love of a lifetime. There is nothing and no one in the world that compares to you."

I don't move.

"I love you, Luke." Her voice catches once, then holds. "I love you more than anything. No matter what's happened—if you asked me to drop everything right now, I would. No regrets. No looking back. I finally understand that there's no time for fear and no time to be apart if we want to be together."

The room is quiet apart from the clock ticking on the fireplace mantle.

I should say something. I can feel her waiting. I can feel the weight of the silence that happens when someone has just handed you everything they have and is standing there with nothing left in reserve.

I don't turn around.

There's something I have to say. I've known what it is for three weeks. I've been contemplating it in this hotel room,trying to find the right perspective to solve it. The reason I haven't spoken is the same as why I stood at this window instead of facing her directly. Saying it would mean admitting that I knew all along—while I was doing it—that it mirrored the monster she's battled her entire life. Yet, I did it regardless.

"I told myself it was to protect you," I say. Still facing the window. "The arrangement. The sixty days. I had the logic worked out—close the file, remove the weapon the board was using against you, give us both sixty days of breathing room." I pause. "But that's not why I did it."

She doesn't say anything.

“I did it because I was afraid of what you'd say if I asked you. I knew you'd refuse, and that would mean I'd have to face the very thing I was trying to avoid, which I couldn't do—" I pause. "I prioritized my own comfort over your right to decide. I realized my actions mirrored the same systems that have determined what you could handle without consulting you first. Yet, I did it anyway."

The clock ticks.

"That's what I should have said when you first confronted me about it," I say. "Instead of rationalizing my decision. Hindsight, I guess.”

I hear the small sound she makes—not quite a breath, not quite a sob. Something caught and held.

Then I hear her weight shift on the crutches.

The soft scrape of them on the floor. She's turning toward the door. I keep my eyes on the window. The Strip. The desert. Anything except what's happening behind me.

Something plays softly from across the room—she's found the portable speaker, she's put something on, the opening notes ofFamiliar Taste of Poisonfilling the suite before she heads for the door—and that's when I hear it.

The crutches.

Not the sound of someone walking normally across a room. The sound of someone working. The careful, effortful rhythm of someone managing a body that has been through something serious and hasn't finished healing. Every step she takes is measured and deliberate. Every step costs her something, and she keeps paying the price.

I turn around.

She's halfway to the door. Moving slowly, her right leg in a cast from thigh to toe, her jaw set, her eyes down. The bruising on her face and neck. The way she's holding her left side slightly. The way she is fighting, even now, not to ask for anything.

She came here like this.

She got on a plane or got in a car or got in whatever transport she could find and she came to this hoteland she got on an elevator and she walked down this hallway on those crutches to knock on my door—because she had something to say and she was going to say it regardless of what it cost her physically, and I stood at the window and told her the true thing too late, and now she's leaving anyway.

She's going to make it to that door.

She's going to walk out because she said she would—and Andi keeps her word.

She reaches for the doorknob.

I cross the room before I know I'm moving.

I come up behind her and slide my arms around her carefully—very carefully, aware of the ribs she’s favoring, aware she's injured in ways I don't know about yet, aware that she's fragile in ways she would never say—and I pull her back against my chest and hold her up and put my mouth against her ear.

"Please don't go, baby," I say. "Don't leave me."