[And despite everything, something about the way she phrases that sticks. Something about it neatly sidesteps the anger and hooks into his curiosity, coaxing him forward through the clouds of indignant pride and making him look. Really look.]

[I don't want you to worry for me.]

[But he worries for everyone. He worries about everyone.]

[I don't want you to worry for me.]

[But that's the whole point.]

[I don't want you to worry for me—]

[Worry instead of her. Take the worry from and remove her from the equation entirely. Erase her. That . . . he almost understands. Almost. But he tips his head to one side all the same, frowning. Trying to make it make sense.]

. . . That's what I want to do for everyone. [No, not quite.] That's what I'm meant to do for everyone. The people I love and the people I don't know. To fix those things . . . that hang over our lives from birth to death, so we don't have to live haunted and hunted by them.

But not for you. You don't want that from me.

[So much so that her body curled in on itself. That she didn't want to be near him. That's the beginning and the end of what he has to give, and she doesn't want it.]

[That's got everything to do with him. She's wrong. But he doesn't want to fight, either. He'd rather just leave. He'd rather disappear from her sight than belabor the point any further. What he needs now, more than anything, is confirmation. The clink of bars into place, the turn of a key. The end of a story.]