I hear movement on the other side of the door, and then the clicking of a lock. My hands are sweating; I unfold them from one another to allow in some air.

“I wondered how long you’d sit outside,” Izabel says, standing in the doorway.

She gestures me in.

“You knew?” I ask.

Izabel makes a noise with her breath, and shakes her head as if she cannot believe I even asked. I cannot believe it, either. Love makes a man undeniably stupid.

My gaze sweeps the living room. A basket of folded laundry sits on the floor beside the sofa; lemon-scented furniture polish and powdered carpet freshener is distinct in the air.

“You have been cleaning,” I say, feeling awkward about my poor attempt to spark conversation. I am not used to this sort of thing; I want to talk with Izabel about what happened, but I certainly do not want to lead with it.

“Yeah, I’ve been cleaning,” she says.

She walks into the kitchen, and I follow.

“Want some coffee?” she asks, turning her back to me and sifting through a cabinet.

“No thank you.”

Withdrawing her hand, it comes out empty, and she closes the cabinet door.

Then her shoulders rise and fall heavily, and still with her back to me she says, “Then what do you want, Victor?”

“Thank you, but I do not want anything,” I tell her kindly. “I could not eat or drink anything if—”

She turns, and looks at me from across the bar. “I mean, what do you want?”

Oh.

I sigh, and glance at a kitchen chair.

“May I sit?”

She nods.

“I will understand if you do not want to see me—”

“If I didn’t want to see you, Victor, I wouldn’t have opened the door and let you inside.”

She is waiting for something. An apology? I will gladly give it to her. I do not know how many times I told her I was sorry while she was in the hospital, but I will apologize every day for the rest of my life if that is what she needs. An explanation? I have been desperate to give her one of those as well, and I intended to do that also while she was hospitalized, but considering she would not talk to me, I did not feel it the right time.

I decide to go with something different, something she would likely never expect of me—something I never expected of myself.

“It would make me very happy if you would marry me, Izabel.”

She just stares at me, unblinking, and although the expression on her face has not changed much from the emotionless one, I see evidence of something different in her eyes. But I haven’t the faintest clue as to what it is.

I stand up. Because it feels right not to be sitting.

“I…I do not expect it soon,” I begin, nervously, “but I hope that someday you will be my wife, because I—”

“Stop, Victor.” She puts up a hand.

Maybe I should have stuck with the apologies and explanations.

“I am sorry,” I say.

“I said stop.”

She drops her hand at her side and comes toward me; I get the feeling I am about to be lectured in the calmest of ways.

Her hands touch my shoulders lightly, and the next thing I know, I am sitting down again. She pulls out the empty chair next to me and sits, drawing her legs up and crossing them with her feet tucked beneath her bare thighs; she rests her hands in her lap. I try so hard not to look at the still-healing four-inch-long scar running upward along the side of her throat; the many stitches, like a freakishly-large centipede with wiry black legs; the glistening medicated lubricant—I tear my eyes away, swallow hard, and look at her beautiful face instead. I feel the stiches across the palm of my hand, but mine are nothing compared to hers.

She hesitates, as if gathering the appropriate words, and then says, “I love you fiercely, Victor. I can’t control that, and I can’t change it. But unlike you”—she pauses, holding my gaze—“unlike you, I’m not trying to.”

I start to speak, but she is not finished.

“It’s all you’ve ever done,” she says. “Since you met me, you’ve tried to push me away, tried to control something no man or woman can ever control, instead of accepting it, and letting life happen—please look at me, Victor.”

I had not realized my eyes had strayed from hers. Out of shame. Out of regret. Out of knowing that everything she is saying is right.

“I can forgive a lot of things,” she goes on. “I can forgive and forget. But what you did—what you tried to do—with Niklas, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get past that.”

“Izabel—”

She leans forward a little, and begins to whisper harshly. “You tried to pass me off to your brother”—her hands squeeze into fists within her lap—“do you have any idea how that feels to me?”

“No,” I say. “I can never understand fully how you feel, but I do know how much I regret it, and if how much I regret it is any indication of how you might feel, then I know the intensity of the pain, at least. I cannot take it back, but I know I could never do anything like that again.”

“But you did it once,” she says, shaking her head. “You didn’t want me…”

I shake my head, too, more vigorously, in advance of hoping to get my point across. “That is the furthest thing from the truth,” I say. “Because I wanted you, because I love you, that is why I tried to push you away—it makes no sense, I know. It is why I tried to put you with the only person other than you in this world who I trust. It was a mistake, one I do not ever expect to be forgiven for, but one I hope you can at least understand.”

“I do understand,” she comes back. “I understand why you did it; I understand that what you did wasn’t bad—it was just wrong. So very wrong, Victor. But I’m right when I say you did it because you didn’t want me—please let me finish.”

I drop my hand and close my mouth.

“You were willing to give me up to somebody else,” she says. “That fact remains, and can’t be argued—no matter what your reasons were, you still wanted to give me up.”

“But I do not want that anymore,” I say quickly. “And in my heart…I never really did.”

I try to reach out and take her hands into mine, but she gets up from the chair, refusing me, and begins to pace. Then with her arms crossed and her back to me, she stops near the counter.

I stand as well. But I say nothing. I feel everything like a heavy weight in my chest but I say nothing because I cannot. I am afraid—no, I am terrified of losing her.

“I didn’t talk to you in the hospital, because I was afraid of saying things I’d regret.” She turns around. “I needed time to think, time to heal, not just my injury, but my heart as well—time to…decide.”

My heart drops.

“To decide what?” I ask in a quieter voice than I expected; my hands are sweating again.

Her eyes find mine and she answers, “I want to live on my own, Victor. I want my own house, my own address, my own…bed.”

“Why? What are you saying?” This cannot be happening—I will not let it.

Izabel leaves the counter, steps up closer, and looks into my eyes. “I’m saying that I love you,” she answers, “but I don’t want to live with you anymore. At least for a little while.”

I do not feel good or bad about her announcement; it confuses me more than anything.

“I need you to listen to me for a moment,” she says. “I need you to understand something that I realized during the time I’ve been away from you.”

I nod. “I am listening.”

She crosses her arms and walks back toward the counter, taking the weight on her shoulders with her, and preparing to release it.

“I’ve never had anything that was just mine—not even my own space and freedom. My thoughts and actions and decisions have always been dictated by someone else—even you. I’ve barely even slept alone.” She leans against the counter. “But that’s going to change. No matter what you want, or how you feel about it, I’m going to do what I want, Victor, and if you have a problem with it, then we can end this relationship right now.” (I blink, stunned, and my heart feels like it just took a punch.) “I’m going to live in a place of my choosing, pay for it with the money I’ve worked hard for, and I’m going to do what I want, when I want, how I want, and without eyes at my back, or babysitters in my driveway.”