"You almost ended us."
"I know that too." She wiped her face with the heel of her hand. "Are we ended?"
He was quiet for a long time. Shadow shifted and put a paw on Marcus's boot. "I don't know yet," Marcus said. "I love you. That's still true. But love isn't a free pass for this. And I can't live in that apartment right now. Not with the empty bed in my head every time I walk in."
"Then don't," she said. "Stay at Denise's. Or we find a new place. Or — Marcus, tell me what repairing this looks like, and I'll do it. Or tell me it's over, and I'll... I'll try to live with that. But don't leave me in the maybe forever. I already lived in the maybe for eight months."
He looked at her then — really looked. The woman who had held him the night before he deployed. The woman who had sent care packages with the exact brand of jerky he liked. The woman who had also walked his dog into a shelter and signed a paper and driven away.
"Counseling," he said. "Together. And separately. And you don't get to be alone with him again until I say so — not because I think you'd do it twice, but because he needs to know the people around him are safe. And we talk about the military. About whether I'm staying in. About what 'home' means if home keeps meaning goodbye."
She nodded so hard it looked like it hurt. "Okay. Yes. All of that."