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This was fatal. He damn well knew it.

But he couldn’t let go of her.

So he picked her up and took her to bed instead.

He laid her down there beneath the covers, and held her tight, and didn’t see how destroyed he was.

He kissed her temple, and they lay like that for a long time.

“I want to stay,” she whispered.

He felt like he’d been stabbed straight to the center of the chest.

“No,” he said. “No, honey. You’re not staying.”

“Gideon, I love you. I don’t want to leave.”

“Rory,” he said, the word tearing at him. “This isn’t a rope climb, sweetie. This is your life. You decided that you were going to go do this, and you need to go do it. You need to do it for you.”

“Gideon,” she said. “I am doing this for me. I want to be with you. I want to give this a try.”

“Please tell me that you didn’t quit the job.”

“I didn’t. I came straight here after talking to your sister and realizing what I had to do. I came straight here because it was important. I couldn’t have Lydia and Fia knowing and not you.”

“Rory,” he said. “You can’t do this to yourself. Not for me. I am a shitty partner. And I have proven that. I don’t have anything to offer you. I don’t. I am a fucking mess. Or did you not get that from anything that I’ve told you recently?”

“But I love you. I liked you before. But we didn’t... It wasn’t the same. That was just you. That was the Gideon you showed the world. It’s like your shell. It was never you, Gideon. Maybe this is you.”

“Great. That’s what I always wanted to know. That I was always a fucking asshole who actually hates everybody. Great. I am just thrilled to have come to that conclusion.”

“No. You’re somebody who thinks very deeply about the people around him. You’re someone who helped me do a rope climb, just because you cared about me meeting my goals. You bought your family ranch so that you could try to give your mother some of her life back, so that you could try to get something of your life back. You climbed out of your addiction. You fixed yourself when your wife wouldn’t stand by you. And you refuse to blame her, even though she deserves some of the blame. Because she didn’t give you a chance, Gideon. She couldn’t handle you when you weren’t perfect, and her marriage vows didn’t mean anything. And that isn’t a failure on your part.”

“Rory, you don’t understand. I am never going to be able to give you that life. You wanted to go experience things. You wanted to go eat different food. I am not going to ever be able to be the guy who gives you the life you deserve. The life you worked for. That you climbed a rope for.”

“Maybe I was climbing the rope for you. For this life. Maybe this was supposed to be the destination all along and I didn’t realize it yet.”

“Rory,” he said. “Go to Boston. Because I can’t have you here.”

He watched her dissolve, and he hated that. But it was better than breaking her over time. It was. Whether she understood that or not. It was better than letting it get too far, and disappointing her.

This was bearable.

Even as it stabbed him straight through the chest, it was bearable.

“Gideon...”

“Go,” he said.

And he thought with some irony that it was strange he was the one throwing her out when he’d been the one thrown out before.

And that made him have a metallic taste in his mouth.

“I think you should go. I think you should go and you should pack. Because you need to go to Boston.”

“Does it matter what I think?”

“Right now you’re blinded by the sex. But the reality of what it means to be married to me, it would break you. I know it would.”