She smiled sadly at that. He had given something up. She knew he had, and yet she still felt the sting of rejection as she stood up. But in attempts to build a bridge again, she went to him and bent down to kiss his cheek. “I know you do,” she murmured, giving his forearm a squeeze. “And I’m sorry you had to.” Truly, she was. Perhaps she hadn’t been fully aware of how sorry she was until this moment when she was faced with the same answer, but she was sorry and that was that.
![[Image: VIzcNLA.png]](https://i.imgur.com/VIzcNLA.png)