“I love you very much,” Avasarala said. “Knowing you has let me bear the unbearable.” Arjun grinned. He looked good with wrinkles. He was a more handsome man now that he was older. As if the round-faced, comically earnest boy who’d snuck to her window to read poems in the night had only been waiting to become this. “I love you, I have always loved you, if we are born into new lives, I will love you there.” Avasarala sobbed once, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and nodded.
