Page 49 of Truly Madly Magically

Another short laugh. “He also doesn’t make shit up, which means you can’t do it. If Jacob says it’s dangerous? It’s fucking dangerous.”

“What he said was that there are risks.”

“I love when you argue semantics with me like I’m stupid.” He pulls his hand from mine. Agitated, I know. Thinking about the baby, not the big picture.

I don’t want to use Zelda like a hammer, but we’d be having a very different conversation if she was alive. “If your mother was still here—”

“No.” He pushes to his feet.

I sit all the way up, even though he turns and glares at me like I should lie back down. I’m going to be adult and calm, though, because this is important. I sit with my hands in my lap. I use his quiet voice. I look him in the eye.

I am a grown-ass woman, not a teenager. “You would have done anything to save her. You would have sacrificed anyone or anything.”

“No, Ellowyn.”

“You never had to—”

He turns to face me, slapping his hand to his chest. His heart. “You don’t think I had to choose? Over and over and over?”

He’s not angry at me, not fighting with me. Even I can see that, and I’ve never been particularly nuanced when it comes to Zander’s temper. I usually let it light my own, but right now everything’s...softer. Harder. We are both holding pictures of our daughter, who Zelda won’t get to hold the way she should. “Zander.”

“You never wanted to hear it, but I chose.” He says it so quietly I barely hear the words.

Not that they make any sense. “What are you talking about?”

None of this feels like the us I know so well. Too much ache, not enough fire. Too much sadness mixed in with the typical anger. Too much vulnerability, maybe.

I have the strangest thought that this is what we’ve been running from all along. Because we’re great at getting naked in one way, but this is something else.

I’m not sure I want it.

Zander sits back down, and gently takes my hand in his again. “Will you listen?”

If he made that a demand, I would say no. If he was all furious and contained like a few seconds ago, I would back off.

But there is a desperation, a need in that question.

I have been strong when it comes to Zander. An entire decade of one night a year and no more.

It’s not like any of that was easy.

This is different. He said it a few days ago. This changes everything.

“Okay,” I manage. He’s hurting, not just angry. So maybe... Maybe I can handle the truth.

“Actually listen to me,” he insists. “Don’t argue. Don’t tell me you don’t want to hear it, the way you always have. Just sit there and let me say it all. Finally. Can you promise me that?”

I try to say yes, but it won’t come out.

He laughs, just a little exhale of breath. “I appreciate the attempt at a lie, anyway.”

“I can promise to try,” I offer him. It hurts how much I want to offer him. Even if he’s right and I’ve been avoiding this conversation for a very long time. Though I don’t have any idea how it connects to Zelda.

“That’s something, I guess.” He takes a deep breath, and it’s ragged with more of that hurt. I want to think that this is what we do to each other, the way I usually do, like that’s some justification, but we have a daughter on the way.

The world’s a little bigger tonight than what the two of us inflict on each other.

Zander looks down at our hands, still intertwined. “Do you remember back in high school when I had to do that stupid apprenticeship with Festus Proctor?”

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