I stopped.
Because I could hear it now, the neat, logical, argument that completely missed the point.
Karl let the silence sit for a moment before asking in a gentle voice, “And how do you feel about him?”
The question landed like a weight, simple, direct, and impossible to sidestep.
My shoulders sagged as something in me gave way.
“I fell for him. I didn’t say it,” I added. “Back there, I could have. There was a moment.”
“I suspected as much.”
I smiled at that. “Yeah. Well.” I ran a hand over the back of my neck. “I didn’t want to put him in that position.”
“What position?”
“The one where he’d have to respond. Where silence wouldn’t be enough anymore. Where he might feel like he had tosay something back, or explain, or—” I shook my head. “That’s not who he is.”
“And you didn’t want to force him to be someone he’s not.”
“Exactly.”
Karl was quiet for a moment. “And you?”
I frowned. “What about me?”
“Is that who you are? Someone who says nothing, to avoid making things inconvenient for someone else?”
I opened my mouth to respond, then clammed up. That wasn’t what I’d expected.
“I’m not—” I began, then faltered.
Because Ihaddone that. I’d chosen not to speak, to leave things as they were.
To protect him from something I hadn’t been sure he wanted.
“I just didn’t want to make it awkward.” The words sounded weaker than I’d intended.
Karl hummed softly. “Yes, that would have been the real tragedy.”
I huffed out a sound somewhere between a laugh and sheer frustration. “You know what I mean.”
“I do. I’m just not convinced it’s the whole story.”
I sank back onto the couch, staring at the ceiling. Because neither was I, not really.
Not anymore.
“I think—” This part felt harder to say, more exposed. “I think I knew what the answer would be,” I said at last.
Karl didn’t interrupt.
“I think I knew he wasn’t ready to make that kind of choice,” I went on. “And I didn’t want to hear that out loud.”
There it was, the ugly, honest, unavoidable truth.
Karl’s breath filled my ear. “That sounds more like it.”