FORBIDDEN LOVE
She was quiet a moment, looking down at her own hands instead of at me, and when she spoke again, her voice had gone smaller, more careful, like she was choosing each word off a very short, very dangerous list.
"You don't owe me an explanation for this, Aiden. That's the part I need you to actually hear." She looked up, and her eyes were dry, which somehow made it worse than if they hadn't been. "We don't have a real relationship. We have rules. We made them ourselves, on a dock, a lifetime ago, specifically so that neither of us would ever have to have this exact conversation."
"This is different."