"What if I tell you something and you're not still here?" My voice is thin. The question I've been carrying since I was eight, since the first time I learned that being honest about howI felt got me moved to the next placement. "What if the full version really is too much?"
"Then we deal with that. Together. But the alternative, the one where you keep editing and I keep finding out afterward, that ends us, Dev. Not today. Not next week. But eventually. Because I can't trust someone who doesn't trust me with the truth. And without trust, this is just —"
"Just what?"
"Just two people who like each other's book recommendations."
I almost laugh. Almost. It catches in my throat, half-laugh half-sob, and I press my face into the pillow for a second to collect myself.
"That's not fair," I mumble into the pillow. "Using books against me."
"I use what works."
I surface. Look at him. His face in the orange light, serious, open, more vulnerable than I've ever seen him. Because this is costing him too. Asking for things costs Silas. He's the quiet one, the patient one, the one who reads in corners and fixes carburetors and doesn't demand much from anyone. He lets the world come to him. But right now he's reaching out and asking me for something and the effort of it is visible in every line of his body.
"You're scared too," I say.
"Terrified."
"Of what?"
"That you'll say yes and not mean it. That you'll promise to be honest and then the next time something happens, the editing instinct will kick in and you'll hide again. And I'll find out from a phone call or a text or a look on Robin's face, and each time will erode a little more of the thing we're building until there's nothing left."
"That's specific."
"I've been thinking about it for days. Since the virginity conversation. I almost said this then but I didn't because the timing was wrong and you'd just been so brave and I didn't want to —"
"You were editing," I say.
He stops. Blinks.
"You were editing," I repeat. "You had something to say and you didn't say it because you were managing my reaction. Waiting for the right time. Curating the conversation."
The silence that follows is different from the others. Not heavy. Illuminated. The slow recognition of a pattern that runs both ways.
"Yeah," Silas says quietly. "I was."
"So we both do it."
"Apparently."
"You just do it more gently."
"I do it with better intentions."
"Same result though." I reach for his hand on my hip, thread my fingers through his. "I hide the big things because I'm afraid of being too much. You hold back the hard conversations because you're afraid of pushing me away. We're both editing."
"That's... horribly accurate."
"I'm very smart."
"You are. It's annoying."
The room is quiet. Our hands linked between us. The blanket warm over both of us. Somewhere in the building, a pipe settles with a low groan. The bar breathing, the way old buildings do at night.
"Here's what I can promise," I say. "I can promise to try. I can't promise I'll never hide, because the instinct is, Silas, it's been my operating system for twenty-one years. It's not a habit. It's architecture. It's how I'm built. Caseworkers, foster parents, shelters, every system I've ever been in rewarded me for being easy, for not making waves, for giving people the version of me that didn't cause problems. Unlearning that doesn't happen because someone asks me to. It happens slowly, over time, in a place where being honest doesn't get me moved."
"This is that place."