“Yeah, I noticed.” She gives a small snort. “You’ve got that whole ‘I’ve ruined everything’ vibe going on.”
I look away, focusing on the distant mountains. “Because I have.”
Amanda’s arm tightens slightly around mine, not pulling me back, just holding me there. “Have you?” she asks, calm but direct. “Or are you just assuming that because it feels dramatic enough to be true?”
I frown. “They were fighting, Amanda. Actually fighting. That doesn’t just happen out of nowhere.”
“No,” she agrees. “It doesn’t. But it also doesn’t happen because of one person alone. You didn’t make them do anything.”
“I might as well have,” I mutter. “If I hadn’t… if I’d just kept things under control?—”
“Under control?” She lets out a short breath, not quite a laugh. “They’re grown men, Sierra. Not toddlers you’re supposed to supervise. Whatever they did, they chose to do.”
“That doesn’t mean I didn’t set it in motion.”
“Maybe you did,” she says, and there’s a little more edge in her voice now. “But that still doesn’t make you the sole causeof everything that followed. You’re giving yourself a lot of credit there.”
I run a hand through my hair. “You don’t get it.”
Amanda turns to face me fully. “Then help me get it.”
I shake my head, frustration bubbling up. “I came here to do a job. That was it. Get what I needed, keep things professional, leave. Instead, I—” I cut myself off, swallowing hard. “I crossed every line there was to cross.”
“And?”
“And now look at what’s happened.”
Amanda studies me for a moment, her expression softening just slightly, though the firmness doesn’t leave her voice. “What’s happened is that a few people made some messy choices and now they have to deal with the consequences. That’s life. It’s not the end of the world.”
“It might be for them,” I say quietly.
“And you think removing yourself from the equation is going to magically fix everything?” she asks.
I hesitate, because I don’t actually know the answer. But it feels right. It feels like the only thing I can do.
“It’ll stop me making it worse,” I say at last.
Amanda watches me for a long second, then exhales slowly. “Or,” she says, a little more bluntly now, “it’ll just be you running away because you feel guilty and don’t want to sit in the fallout.”
The words land harder than I expect.
I flinch, even though I try not to show it. “That’s not?—”
“Isn’t it?” she cuts in, not unkind, but not backing down either. “Look, I’m not saying this isn’t messy. It is. But you’re acting like you’ve destroyed lives here, and that’s just not true. You’re not that powerful.”
I stare at her, stung. “That’s not what I?—”
“No,” she says, gentler now, “what you are is human. You made choices, and so did they. That’s it. It doesn’t make you some kind of villain.”
I swallow, but the tightness in my chest doesn’t ease. If anything, it digs in deeper.
Because I don’t believe her.
“I still shouldn’t have done it,” I say quietly.
Amanda’s shoulders drop a fraction, like she can see she’s not getting through. “Maybe not,” she concedes. “But ‘shouldn’t have’ and ‘everything is ruined forever’ are not the same thing.”
I don’t answer.