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“No.”

“I would tell you that you haven’t healed yet.”

The words hurt badly enough that my first instinct is to reject them. “I spent fifteen months in recovery.”

“I know.”

“I went into residential treatment. I still go to therapy. I rebuilt my life, opened my boutique, repaired my relationship with my mother, and learned how to exist inside my body without punishing it every time I feel something.”

“I know all of that too.”

“Then how can you stand there and tell me I haven’t healed?”

“Because healing the things that were killing you doesn’t mean you found the broken piece.”

My mouth closes.

Ryan keeps his voice level. There is no accusation inside it now, which makes every word harder to escape.

“You tackled massive fucking issues, Charm. You faced the eating disorder. You’re getting a handle on your dysmorphia. You are better in other areas—anxiety, panic attacks, your father’s control, and every cruel thing you were trained to believe about yourself. None of that was small, and I will never pretend it was.”

“Then what did I miss?”

“You assumed that because you survived the worst of it, you were fixed.”

“I never said I was fixed.”

“You came into this weekend acting like the work you already completed meant there couldn’t be anything left inside you capable of hurting me.”

“That isn’t what I thought.”

“You told yourself you had changed enough to win me back. Every time I resisted, you treated it like another obstacle Current Charm could overcome because she had already done the work.”

I want to argue.

The evidence stands between us instead.

I arrived at the castle prepared to prove I had become brave enough to love Ryan openly. I never considered whether becoming brave had also taught me how to respect what happened when he still said no.

“What does last night prove?” I ask.

“That there are places inside you neither of us can reach.”

My eyes burn. “You reached every part of me.”

“Physically.”

The correction lands without vulgarity or tenderness.

“This weekend showed you’re still broken in places I can’t fix and you don’t know how to find,” he continues. “That doesn’t make you a bad person. You are intelligent, funny, protective, generous, creative, and capable of making people feel heard when nobody else knows how to listen. I could stand here all day listing every quality that makes you extraordinary.”

The words should comfort me.

They don’t.

“But?”

“But none of those things change what happens when you believe you’re losing control.”