“Stop it!” Alani whispered. “Just stop! I don’t care if you didn’t mean to, if you didn’t see her! If it was a mistake! I don’t care if you’re sorry! None of that brings my daughter back to me.” She stood to her feet, a snotty, sobbing mess. Alani could see the remorse in his eyes. The pride-filled, strong, honorable man she had come to know, stood before her half of himself. He was sorry. After all the lies, that much was true, but Alani wasn’t a forgiving woman. She felt no sympathy for his guilt. She hoped it tortured him. She stood, and he blocked her, pushing her against his car. “Am I not free to go? After everything you’ve taken from me, are you taking that too? My choice to walk away?” It seemed her tears were filling the air with thick humidity. Ethic couldn’t breathe. It felt like she was twisting his heart with a pair of pliers. He had felt a lot of loss in his lifetime. He had lost people to death, he had lost a woman to another man, but this loss felt uniquely significant. To lose Alani because of his own wrongdoing was tormenting. It felt inhumane to love her; and then to not be able to have her when she was standing so close, right in arm’s reach. “I need you to leave me alone,” Alani cried. “Please, Ethic. I swear to God, if you don’t, I’m going to do something crazy. I want to hurt you. I want you to pay, and the only way to make you pay is to feel the loss of me. You have to stay away from me, because if you can’t, I will take myself away - permanently…from everything. You can either mourn losing me or mourn my death, because at this point, I’m willing to die to make this pain go away.” Ethic knew she was serious. The last thing he wanted was for her to hurt herself. He didn’t want to pour alcohol in her wound. If his presence was unbearable to her, he would have to be absent.