The air in the room seemed softer now, and Alfred took a moment after she spoke to just take in her words. It was gratifying to hear her first admission but, all things considered, surprisingly unsurprising. As much as he had tried to convince himself that her silence in response to his last letter meant that she wanted nothing to do with him, maybe he hadn't ever really believed that. Telling himself that she had moved on and he ought to do the same was less painful, he realized, than the sobering truth that they had uncovered here in the hospital room: that they both felt the same way, and that it didn't matter. The feelings in his chest, strong as they might be, could not create opportunities from thin air. They could not forge a happy ending from the shoddy materials the two of them had to work with.

"I know," he said eventually. "And I can't ask you to."

Alfred's insides hurt. He simultaneously wished that she would go, and that she would move closer to the bed so that he could hold her up against his chest and smell her hair and pretend that he had an answer for this, or that somehow things would be alright in the end.

"So that's it, isn't it?" he asked, with some difficulty. "We're stuck."