He has nothing to say to that. Instead, he simply holds her, quiet for a moment, looking inward for something that could help. Anything. But to find the words to heal a heart is no simple task, and in the end, he has only memory.
"On the day I first saw you without the Vallaslin, you were so beautiful that I could hardly speak," He whispers, mingling his breath in the crown of her hair, "I had thought myself so clever. But I looked upon you, freed, and I knew I was a fool. You were brilliant, more alive and real than anyone I have ever known."
And he had thought of her in a thousand terrible ways, in the privacy of his own mind. Lying, always, or hoping for a different truth, or simply... wishing he could erase his own faults and mistakes, in the false world they made together.
"I had loved you, and I had told myself that it was nothing, but your trust in me showed that the lie was not to call you my heart, but to deny that it was so. That... is why I left. It was kinder to break your heart then, than to continue to chain it to false promises, lies that I had no intention of honoring."
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"On the day I first saw you without the Vallaslin, you were so beautiful that I could hardly speak," He whispers, mingling his breath in the crown of her hair, "I had thought myself so clever. But I looked upon you, freed, and I knew I was a fool. You were brilliant, more alive and real than anyone I have ever known."
And he had thought of her in a thousand terrible ways, in the privacy of his own mind. Lying, always, or hoping for a different truth, or simply... wishing he could erase his own faults and mistakes, in the false world they made together.
"I had loved you, and I had told myself that it was nothing, but your trust in me showed that the lie was not to call you my heart, but to deny that it was so. That... is why I left. It was kinder to break your heart then, than to continue to chain it to false promises, lies that I had no intention of honoring."