His mouth apparently running out of free words, he went silent again. He cursed himself mentally for not having the balls to look her in the eyes right now. Once again, the room plunged into silence. An endless moment passed before Zasia spoke.

“I believe that is the most you have ever opened up to me in the entire time I’ve known you, Aldric. I imagine that took a lot for you to say.” More silence followed, then she sighed loudly and spoke again.

“With as long as I’ve known you, I’d be surprised if you were ever anything but difficult. It is both your greatest failing and greatest strength. Your stubbornness enabled you to accomplish things that even I did not think you could. It has also allowed you to get under my skin more times than I can count. I expect you to be difficult, Aldric. I’ve dealt with that almost my whole life. But I did not expect you to be hurtful. And the things you said were deeply hurtful.”

Aldric felt like he’d been stabbed. No, that wasn’t right. He’d been stabbed before. This was much worse than that. An awful, twisting pain in his gut that only got worse the more she quietly stared at him. He’d hurt his best friend. On purpose, even. He’d never been more ashamed of himself than in that moment.

“Almost everything you said was correct,” Zasia mercifully continued after a long pause. “You were a complete and utter terror. A number does not exist to catalog the number of times you aggravated me nearly to the point of screaming. That goes for before you lived with me and after as well. You were a proper mess, and don’t even get me started on how expensive it was...!”

She seemed to be working herself up, to where her tone was growing more annoyed with every sentence. Aldric prepared himself for the explosion of anger that was incoming.

Instead, Zasia’s tone dropped. She was quiet, almost gentle, as she said, “You were wrong in one aspect, however. I have never once been ashamed of you, my dear. Nor will I. I know too well what a good man you truly are. That is why it hurt me so much, to see you wallow in grief and self-destruction. If there was something I could do, something I could give to you, something I could fight to save you, I would. I just couldn’t find out what it was.”

Aldric finally looked at her now, his face filled with open shock and disbelief. She was smiling at him with a genuine and caring smile. A smile he had missed dearly.

“You do not know how happy I am to hear that you are doing better here. It makes all those years worth it.”