Page 67 of Second Alarm

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"Yeah," I say.

" — falls apart. And I did that. I. Me. With my decisions. I broke my mother's family. And you're sitting there saying 'yeah.'"

"Because I've been carrying that exact fear for ten years. I've had to plan Christmases around it. I've driven past your mother's driveway at forty miles an hour because I was scared she'd see me and know something. I've apologized in my head to Cal approximately a million times while we were eating at the same table. I know."

She closes her eyes. The spin stops.

"What do you want from me tonight?"

"I want you to say you're in."

"I'm in."

"On the actual telling."

"Ty — "

"You said you're in."

"I'm in on the — the being together. The relationship. The — " She gestures, frustrated — the same windmill gesture she made when she broke her mother's casserole dish at nine years old and couldn't say sorry. " —that. I'm in on that."

"Okay."

"But."

"Yeah?"

"I can't promise you a date."

"I'm not asking for one. I'm asking you to agree we're going to tell him. Not on my schedule — on the one where it happens before the universe forces it."

She looks at me for a long moment. The spin starts again, stops again.

"And if I don't agree?"

"Hanna."

"No. Ty. Genuinely. What happens?"

I don't answer immediately. Not because I don't know. Because the answer has been sitting in my chest for forty-eight hours and I haven't said it even to the kettle.

"I can't keep doing it. I wouldn't leave the station. I wouldn't leave you in any meaningful way. But I couldn't keep being in the linen closet. I'm not built for that."

"But you were at twenty-three?"

"At twenty-three I was built to be whatever you needed me to be. I'm not twenty-three now."

She flinches.

I wish I could take it back. I don't.

"I didn't mean — "

"You did."

"I did."

"Okay."

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