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"No-" I answer immediately once again, as if any potential delay in my response will give her reason to disbelieve me. She doesn't know. But she's never asked. In that moment, I have no idea which is more horrific - that Glacia wouldn't have asked me about love, or that she hadn't asked me at all, and so wouldn't know. But then again ... it couldn't be the case that something like that would be assumed between us?
She can't think I love her, could she?
Immediately my mind fits together, and simultaneously refutes an argument. I want to console myself by saying something like, we only just met. She can't reasonably thing I love her after just one encounter. How could I? but with stiffing quickness and certainty, I reminded myself that that was precisely how I felt about Ranjiri.
How does it feel not knowing that I love you? I want to ask, but instead I leave my eyes on the ground, too ashamed to meet her gaze.
Is that why you're panicking? "Because you figured out that its real? Do you even want to be a father?
My gaze rises, my chest shaky with the raspy breathes that I try to tentatively draw. "This is now larger than she or I. There is another life at stake ... a life that shouldn't be subjected from birth to the mistakes of others...Of course I want to be a father ... but not like this."
Her next question catches me completely off guard. I hadn't even thought that far in advance. You idiot, I think critically of myself, as my face falls with the slow realization of what she's said. Of course I'll have to go ... Unless Glacia would come here? For a bright moment it seems that departing from Ranjiri again could be remedied, but instantly my gut twists again, and I know that I couldn't bear the thought of seeing Ranjiri anywhere near Glacia or my child. Something about it seems too horrific. Like rubbing salt in a wound. She is too perfect, the life I quite literally fucked away, to be subjected to my mistakes on a daily basis.
"I...suppose." I offer, my voice a near whisper. It is harder to hear my voice crack with emotion when it is so soft, and I hope that I have hidden the lump that has appeared in my throat well. "At least this time I will be able to say goodbye to you-" I force out, my voice a bitter and ugly sound as I can feel the beginnings of tears stinging down in my nasal cavity as they rise to my eyes, which are now firmly fixed near Ranjiri's hooves.
The idea of leaving her, again, is too terrible to bear, despite the fact that I am well aware that I am entirely responsible for this mess. The disappointment in her voice leaves no way out - she already seems horrified by my decisions, how could I possibly lower myself in her eyes any further, by saying that I will abandon Glacia and my child? Not to mention how it would resonate with her, coming from such a broken-up home.
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