“Then I’ll move out,” Kat quickly states matter-of-factly, but the pain is barely disguised. She seems to snap out of whatever daze had her captive before I came in here.

“I don’t want you to move out. We don’t need this.” I emphasize my words.

“I asked for time and space because I don’t know what to do, Evan. You aren’t giving me any options without telling me what happened.”

“You want to know?” I look her in the eyes, feeling my blood pulse harder in my veins.

“Are you going to tell me the truth?” she asks me in a cracked whisper. “All of it?”

All of it? I have to break her gaze. I can’t. I can’t confess everything. I’d lose her forever.

The second I break eye contact, she scoffs. “You’re so full of shit. Why are you doing this to me?” she asks me, although it’s rhetorical. There’s a loathing in her tone but more than that it’s pain.

Why am I doing this to her? If it was only so easy as doing something. There’s nothing I can do.

“I didn’t come home to fight.”

“Neither did I … but here we are,” she retorts, taking in a shuddering breath. “I asked for time, Evan.”

Tossing my keys on the coffee table, I make my way into the living room and sit across from her in the armchair. I’m not foolish enough to think she’d let me sit close enough to touch her. Even as I sit here, feet away, she bends her legs in closer and pushes the laptop to the side. Like she’s ready to run at a moment’s notice.

Time slips by as I lean back, letting a long exhale take up some of it. “I just want to be home with you while this blows over.”

“Blows over?” I don’t know how she can make a whisper seem hysterical. I’m not good with words. I never have been, but I wish I had the wisdom to say the right thing right now.

“Maybe this is the moment,” she states with a sad smile on her beautiful face.

“The moment?”

“The moment that changes everything for the rest of my life. I’ve been wondering exactly what moment it was, but thought maybe it hasn’t happened yet.”

Her words settle deep in my very core and a tingling runs through my fingers up my arms. Slow, yet all-consuming. Her face changes from the sarcastic disappointment that she had when she said the words. As if only just now realizing the magnitude of them herself.

“We can go back. I promise,” I tell her softly, raising my hands just slightly, but the fear of losing her keeps my blood cold and my motions subtle.