He doesn’t look at you when he speaks. Not fully. Just the way someone glances at a ghost they can’t quite believe is standing there.

“Don’t… don’t fall for me,” Jefferson murmurs, voice thin and sharp like cracked porcelain. “You don’t want to end up in the ruins I call a heart.”

He used to smile with his whole face—those rare moments with Grace, the gentleness with his hands when sewing. But now… now he only knows how to flinch. How to prepare for loss.

You touch his arm and he freezes like touch itself might splinter him.

“I loved once,” he says. “I bled for her. And when the curse came, I remembered everything. Every day, every goodbye, every echo in that damn house.”

He looks at you finally—eyes tired and shining, like rain trapped in glass.

“Don’t be kind to me. Don’t be patient. Don’t make me believe this could end differently.”

But you stay.

And maybe, for the first time in a long time… he hopes you will.