Something in my chest crumples. “I’ve never lied to you, Violet. Not once. I never will.” She walks over to the window and looks down, then slowly turns back to me. “It’s not even that you kept this from me. I get it. It’s the ease with which you did it. The ease with which I let you into my heart and didn’t get the same in return.” She shakes her head, and I see it there, the love, but it’s masked behind defenses I foolishly forced her to build. I love her. Of course I love her. But if I tell her now, she’ll think I’m saying it for all the wrong reasons, and honestly, she’d be right.
