Kaveh relaxed his iron grip, propping himself up as he guided her by the chin to look at him. “Honey, I know you’re still deep in it, but I think you might be understating what just happened. What happened at the restaurant was really horrible. It was bound to cause a reaction, and you’re already . . . not well.”

“‘Not well.’” she closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to look at him. “Fucking crazy.”

“I wouldn’t phrase it so crassly—”

“But I am fucking crazy.” She looked at him, feeling the adrenaline that had only begun to slow start to surge again. “I’ve got a permanent alien-induced infection that just floods into me with no rhyme or reason, and even if I didn’t, I’d still be like this. Even if he dies, I’ll still be like this. And you know that now, and you’ve seen it, and you pity me but you don’t want me.”

“What?”

“Of course you don’t want me, you don’t even want to fuck me anymore.”

“Is that what you—” He sighed, shaking his head, then he began kissing her on the forehead, her cheeks, the tip of her nose. “Of course I still want you!” He looked at her fondly, like they’d just had a cute little misunderstanding. “I just . . . I was so careless before. I’m trying to be more careful.”

She turned over to face him properly. It had been one of those honest blurtings that in her right mind she never would have made, but she didn’t know what to do with this. “Why should it be on you to be careful? This isn’t your fault. Bad enough I’m the way I am, I come attached for life to this four-hundred-pound tumor.”

He lay down on his side to face her, taking one of her hands in his own. “We all come with baggage; yours just happens to be about nine feet tall and a little cranky.”

By this point, Cora was so drained she didn’t know what to feel. He looked at her with such sincerity, running his fingertips over her hair, careful to avoid her injury.

“I know you think I’m looking for an excuse to abandon you,” he said softly. “I can see it in your eyes. I knew Nils left you, but I didn’t really think about how he did it or what it did to you.”

“So you think I’m just creepily projecting my daddy issues onto you?” she asked, again speaking without thinking and regretting the words even as they left her mouth.