The first half of what she said might have gotten under his skin, but she ruined it with the vulgarity. It was too obvious she was frustrated, and letting it drive her behavior; too easy to dismiss anything she said as fueled by inarticulate spite rather than a real criticism. He may have started this conversation at a disadvantage, but he thought he was going to end up winning it.

"I didn't fuck her to feel big," he said, with venom. Sina had used the word fucking intentionally to make the act seem degrading, worthless, cheap, and Oz decided it suited his purposes just fine to frame it that way, at least at the moment. "I fucked her because I was bored," he said, which was — perhaps not the truth, but at least close enough to be considered a cousin to the truth, back when this whole thing had started. He certainly hadn't kept it going for a year out of boredom, but he didn't need to get any of that in order to throw out the punch he'd been preparing for, said slowly and deliberately: "You bore me."

---

Of course he had been waiting for this, for the moment where the argument turned. He moved faster than she did and stepped into her path as close to her as he could, blocking her way to the door. (He hadn't had time before going to the ballet to switch his cologne, so he was still wearing his usual scent and not the one he wore for Sophia; now he was grateful, because they were close enough that Sina might have noticed if he smelled different).

---

The ultimatum was not entirely unexpected, or at least the existence of an ultimatum wasn't. You wouldn't dare, he might have replied. The words were on his tongue and in his eyes as he met hers. But Oz knew how they argued very well at this point, and he would have expected her to have stood her ground when he'd stepped into her path, to deliver her next line standing toe-to-toe with him. She had stepped back. He felt the absence of her in the space where she ought to have been as strongly as the pull of gravity — he was off-balance. She might have meant it.

He held her eyes for a long moment while he tried to find a way around it. He didn't want to cave now, partly because of Sophia but mostly because he had started this fight and didn't want to lose it. But there was nothing for it, because he could never survive a future without her. His voice was thick when he responded, but level: "I swear never to touch her again."

---