I’ve seen witnesses cry before. It’s part of the job. You learn to compartmentalize, to stay professional, to do what needs to be done.
But watching Stevie cry while wearing the shirt of the man she loves, knowing I’m about to erase her life for the second time? It takes everything I have not to reach for her.
“I can’t do this again,” she whispers. “I can’t be someone else again. I’ll die, Saul. I’ll disappear for real this time.”
“You won’t.”
“You don’t know that!” She’s shouting. Her hands come up. Fists against my chest. Not trying to hurt. Just desperate. Trying to make me understand. “You don’t know that!”
She hits again. Weaker. Her voice cracking. “I just.” Hit. “I just got.” Hit. “I just got to be myself again.”
The hits turn to just her hands pressed flat against my chest. She’s sobbing now. Full-body shaking.
I catch her wrists. Gently. Hold them. “Stevie.”
“He made me breakfast,” she chokes out. “Terrible eggs. Burned. And I ate them anyway because he tried. Because he was there. Because for two weeks I got to wake up and not be alone.”
Her knees give out.
I catch her. Lower us both to the floor. She curls against me, sobbing into my shirt, and I hold her. This woman I’ve been falling for while she was falling for someone else.
“I’m sorry,” I say into her hair. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t relocate me,” she begs. “Please. I’ll be careful. I’ll stay away from them. Just don’t make me disappear again.”
“I have to keep you safe.”
“I don’t want to be safe!” She pulls back. Looks at me with red eyes and a tear-stained face. “I want to be alive. Even if it’s dangerous. Even if it kills me. I’d rather die as Stevie than live forever as Beth.”
The words echo in the small apartment.
She’s shaking. Crying. Looking at me with something that might be hate or might be desperation or might be both.
And I make a decision.
“If you won’t relocate tonight,” I say slowly, “then I’m staying.”
“What?”
“Here. On your couch. Until we figure out the next steps.”
“Saul, you can’t.”
“I’m not leaving you alone.” I hold her gaze. “Not tonight. Not knowing what’s out there. What might come.”
“Enzo will come back. If you’re here.”
“Then I’ll be here when he does.”
She stares at me. Processing. “Why?” she asks quietly. “Why aren’t you just calling this in? Reporting me? Forcing the relocation?”
Because I care about you. Because watching you fall in love with someone else has made me realize I was falling too. Because I can’t stand the thought of you hating me, even if hating me would keep you alive.
“Because you’re my witness,” I say instead. “My responsibility. And I’m not giving up on you just because you’ve made things complicated.”
She laughs. Wet and broken. “Complicated is an understatement.”
“Yeah.” I almost smile. “It is.”
