Daff could understand the distance, there was no way to hold it against him; how unfair would that be? A lot had happened, more than she knew, though was soon to find out. As he stepped away, she watched him carefully, hands pressed to her ribs, afraid to breathe and shatter the ground they had covered in the last few minutes.

He looked exhausted and somehow broken and she desperately wanted to reach out to him, to tell him this worked both ways. She wanted him to tell her everything, too, they were in this together, but there was something too delicate about the air between them that had her biting her lip, waiting to hear what he had to say. She needed to do a better job of listening instead of rambling, instead of getting caught up in her own thoughts.

Irene.

Of course. This was the too he'd mentioned. But that she had left and Elias looked as though he had lost her somehow threw Daff off kilter. "It's my fault, isn't it?" She managed in a whisper, tears springing to the corners of her eyes once more, seeing the pain in his, and knowing she had to be to blame. The last thing she had ever wanted was to come between them, that precious friendship that he clearly cared a great deal about. Those sorts of relationships were invaluable, necessary, and she'd somehow ruined it for them. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"