"You have Stockholm Syndrome," she said, reaching across the table to take my hand in hers. She squeezed, her eyes warm and understanding as she tried to compel me to believe her.

"Probably," I admitted, huffing a laugh as she reeled back from my easy admission. "I'm not that naïve. I know what I feel for Rafe isn't normal and most people won't think it's healthy. It isn't. But that doesn't make it any less real. Giving it a name doesn't make it a figment of my imagination."

"I never said it was," she said, tapping the table with her free hand. "But my point is that once we get you away from him, we can get you help. Therapy. Understand why you developed these feelings in the first place and work through them."

"Chloe, I have to want that in order for it to work," I said, smiling gently. It was my turn to squeeze her hand as she tried to pull back. "I am not going to leave him. I'm not going to see a therapist and work through my feelings. I've accepted who he is and his place in my life. All that's left is for the people who claim to love me to do the same, because no matter what you think of this? It's my choice. Not yours."

"So I'm supposed to just let you stay married to him?" she asked, pushing her chair back and standing. I followed, smoothly unfolding my legs. I felt more like Rafael in those moments when my body moved passively, not showing the aggravation that I felt building under my skin. "He's a murderer, Isa!" she yelled, her hands waving as if she didn't know what to do with me anymore.

"So am I!" I shouted back, watching as her eyes rounded in shock. Her hands fell to her sides as she stumbled back a step as if I'd struck her. Trusting that Rafael would take care of me and that there would never be any consequences for what I admitted, I continued on. I couldn't tell my family the whole truth of who I'd become. But Chloe wasn't my Catholic mother. She wasn't my Menominee grandmother who believed in never harming another living creature. "I have killed a man. I have pressed a knife between his ribs and into his heart. I have watched the life bleed from his eyes, and I don't regret a fucking second of it because he deserved it."

She shook her head, her feet moving through the house to take her toward the door. "This isn't you. You'd never hurt anyone—"

"Maybe just like everybody else in my life, you never really knew me," I said, my voice dropping to a pained whisper. With the reality staring me in the face, I couldn't deny the truth to Rafe's words the night before. They would never understand, and they'd certainly never accept me like this.

I was a stain on the way they thought people should live. Law-abiding and constructive parts of society. If being with Rafael had taught me anything, it was that the world wasn't so black and white. We painted in shades of gray with accents of blood to offset the monotony, but nothing was ever what it seemed. Real life was complicated, and only those with their heads buried in the sand didn't realize it.

"You're my best friend," she said, her throat clogging with emotion that threatened to make mine spill over. "You think I don’t know you, but some guy you've known for a month does? I was there with you foryears!I saw—"

"Exactly what I wanted you to see," I murmured, watching as her body went still. "You saw me being who everyone wanted me to be and never once stopping to think about whatIwanted."

"I know that! God, do you remember the number of times I told you that you could do something just for you?" she asked, putting her hand on the doorknob to the front door and looking back at me over her shoulder.

"And now that I have, it's unacceptable because it isn't what you would have chosen for me. You can't want me to make my own choices and then complain when I do. Do you think it's easy to sit here and have you and my family condemn me for my choice? It isbreakingme that you can't just trust that I didn't make this choice lightly. You have no idea what I've been through or what I've overcome, but Ichosehim anyway. I don't expect you to understand that," I said, heaving a sigh as she turned the knob. They would never and could never comprehend the gravity of that choice. Of the decision to forgive Rafael for everything he’d done. "But I expect you to respect me enough to let me make that choice."

"Call me when you're ready to listen to reason," she said, ignoring what I said and pulling the door open.

"Chloe," I called as she stepped through the open door. "If you make me choose, it will always be him." She nodded with her back to me, not bothering to face me before she stepped out and closed the front door behind her.

Staring after her for a few moments, I jolted when Hugo stepped up behind me and wrapped his arms around me. His chin rested against the top of my head, holding me steady as I watched one of the last pieces of who I was before Rafael walk out of my life.

I had a feeling she wouldn't be back.