“I didn’t mean this as goodbye,” she rushed to say, words tumbling from her lips like water over falls, “just that it’s our last night alone. Tomorrow we’ll be home and with my family and I don’t know—you may hate it, they’re loud and everywhere and you may not want—I didn’t want to say anything after your mother, you needed time, but I didn’t realize we were so close, I thought we’d have more time and I could—” she sucked in a breath “—I could find a way to ask you to stay. With me. Because I love you—love you so much, and—”
