She uncrosses her arms, pushes herself away from the counter.

“Victor,” she says, changing the tone of the conversation to something more nurturing, “you need time away from me as much as I need it from you. You’re as messed up as I am—more, or less, who knows, but what difference does it make?—and I think it’s better for both of us if we take some time apart to figure out what we really want.”

“I know what I want, Izabel; I have never been more sure of anything in my life—I want you.”

“And you have me,” she says quickly, and moves closer, placing a hand on my chest, just above my heart. “You have me…” she whispers. “But I want you to make sure you want me forever. I already know what I want; I’ve known for a long time—you’re just figuring yours out. But despite knowing what I want for a long time now, I’m not even ready for it yet. I need to be my own person, my own love affair, my own everything, before I can truly be any of that for you. I don’t want to depend on you, or anyone else; I want to…live life on my own terms for once.”

“What does that mean?” I ask, getting anxious; the more she talks, the further away from her overall point I feel like I am getting. “What exactly do you want to do, Izabel? Tell me. I will help you with anything.”

“No. That’s just it—I don’t want your help.”

“Then what?” I ask, holding up my hands. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

“I want you to let me do whatever I choose without refusal, without an argument, without your opinions. I just want you to let me go for a little while; set everything aside—your need to protect me, your love for me—and let me live my life the way I want to.”

I shake my head. “I cannot just ignore or forget that I love you, Izabel.”

“I didn’t say that,” she cuts in. “I said to set it aside; don’t let it get in the way of my choices, my wants, and my needs.”

Something about that I do not like, but I know I have to accept her wishes. Because deep down, I know that if I do not, she will walk away from me and never look back. This realization numbs me, because I have never felt it before. The Izabel I knew and fell in love with would have forgiven anything I did, and I know she would never have allowed herself to walk away. Not because she was clingy or desperate—Izabel has always been anything but clingy or desperate—but because she loved me more than she loved herself; she would have stayed by my side even if the Universe told her I was bad for her.

But Izabel is not that person anymore. She has grown. She has…changed. And, unlike me, she is gracefully embracing it.

“I will set it all aside,” I finally say. “And I will give you your space—I will give us our space.”

A small smile becomes barely visible in her eyes.

“Thank you,” she says in a soft voice.

I look at the floor. Then at my hands. Then at the floor again. I am at a loss, about what to say or do next. So I just stand here in discomfort.

“Victor,” she says softly, and I raise my head. “I need to know if there’s anything else you’re hiding from me. We need to clear the air now before it becomes so polluted with lies that we can’t see each other for them.”

“There is nothing else, Izabel,” I say with truth. “You now know the real me; I have done unforgivable things to others for which I am sure I will answer for in death; I have lied to you, and manipulated you, and even used you for my own selfish needs—but what you now know is where it ends.”

She nods. I can only wonder if she believes me.

Then she looks at the floor.

“Do you still love her? Artemis?” Her eyes meet mine slowly.

“No,” I answer right away. “I did love her, but that was a long time ago.”

“What about the baby?” she asks, and I wish that she had not. “Is what you said true? Would you have killed her if she was pregnant with your baby? I just…Victor, I don’t believe you; I don’t care what you’ve done, or the secrets you’ve kept; I don’t care how savage your actions have been in the past—I don’t believe you would’ve killed your baby…I just can’t—”

“I was angry, Izabel,” I speak up. I want to crawl in a hole and be lost to the world.

I start to pace the kitchen now, my arms crossed. I cannot look at her, too focused on the truth to see anything but Artemis’s face, the face that betrayed me, no matter how much she claimed to love me—she murdered my child.

“Victor?”

“I said I was angry,” I repeat, staring at the wall. “She killed my child…and…” I sigh, clench my fists against my midsection. “And I can never forgive her for that.”

“So then you lied to her,” Izabel says, hopeful.

I turn and look at her. “Yes,” I answer. “I wanted to hurt her. But no, I would not have killed her if she was carrying my child.”

She lets out a breath, relieved.

What would she have said, or done, if I had answered any other way?

If Victor would’ve answered any other way, despite how much I love him, I would’ve walked away and never looked back. When it comes to him, I can forgive a lot of things—even his plan with Niklas—but I could never overlook a man so cold that he could murder a woman carrying his child, no matter how young or confused or brainwashed he was—I just couldn’t. But I didn’t believe it in my heart that he could be so vicious.

“Artemis will be looking for you, Izabel,” he says. I feel like it’s something he’s wanted to say since he walked through the doorway. “When she finds out that you are still alive—”

“I’ll be waiting for her,” I cut in.

“You need protection.”

“No,” I say quickly, “I don’t. And I meant what I said about babysitters in my driveway, Victor. If I find out that anyone is watching me…”

He stands there, waiting for the rest, but I decide to leave it at that, let him draw his own conclusions, because any one of them are possible. And I think he knows it.

Finally he nods, accepting my decision, and fighting against it inside his heart. I see it in his eyes, the fight.

I step up closer to him, push up on my toes and kiss the edge of his mouth. “I know this will be hard for you to hear,” I say, “but I want you to know that…I’m glad things turned out the way they did. Everything, from all the secrets you kept from me, to the moment Artemis slid that blade across my throat”—I touch my wound with my fingertips—“I’m grateful for it.”

Victor’s eyebrows draw inward; he shakes his head with disbelief, refusal, but I place my hand on his chest again to stop him from saying what he’s thinking.

“It’s usually unimaginable pain and hardship,” I go on, “that ultimately makes us see who we really are, who we were meant to be, who we’ve always been deep inside...” My hand falls away from his chest. I want to tell him more, about the person awake inside of me, but I can’t. I take a step back and say instead, “Artemis can’t kill me, Victor. I’m convinced of this fact. If I was supposed to die by her hands, I wouldn’t be standing here right now.”

“Sarai?” I hear Dina call from her bedroom down the hall.

I look toward the hall briefly, and then back at Victor, who seems anxious underneath that quiet exterior—he knows our conversation is going to end long before it’s finished.

And that’s how I want it.

“I need to help Dina,” I say.

He nods, though with disappointment.

“How has she been?” he asks.

“Not well. She’s getting worse. I think the diagnosis, just knowing what’s going to happen to her, is accelerating the disease.”

He nods again.

“It always happens like that,” I add. “You’re fine, maybe a few minor symptoms, but nothing debilitating, and then six months after the diagnosis, you’re dead.” I tap the side of my head with my finger. “Most of it is in the head—maybe all of it—I just wish I could convince Dina of that.”