Send him in, she heard herself say when she was alerted to the fact that he had slept on the floor outside her room all night. Her dutiful older brother acquiesced, and her dutiful sisters rose to help her father from the room, knowing full well that the forthcoming conversation did not require their presence.
She herself found the remote to her bed and raised herself to a seated position as the one she loved shuffled into the room awkwardly.
"How did you sleep?" she began reflexively, and immediately regretted it. It was nowhere near where she had wanted to start.
"How did I? …" he boggled, "How did you?"
"I… I'm still exhausted, but I slept,"
She could tell he wanted to come over and sit with her, hold her, comfort her, but after the way she had pushed him away last night he was clearly unsure of where he stood. Decisions she made after the feverish dreams of her epidural not quite coming back to haunt her, but still not feeling like the best way to have gone about things.
"About last night," she started, "I shouldn't have been so abrupt, I'm sorry,"
But being abrupt wasn't really what wanted to apologise for. She wanted to apologise for everything; for starting a relationship with him when she knew fully well he was engaging in carnal acts with another man; for the years of emotional manipulation she had enacted to force him to like her; for changing herself to seem more attractive to him; for telling him she was on the pill when they first had sex, hoping that becoming pregnant would be the tie that bound them together for eternity.
Mostly though, she wanted to apologise to alleviate the intense guilt she had been feeling ever since the twins had been cut from her belly.
But before she knew it he was telling her it was alright, that she had been exhausted from such an emotionally and physically draining experience, and that no-one could ever blame her for how she had acted in that state. But he still stood there in the doorway, clutching at an elbow like he was a child who had been pushed off some play equipment by his only friend.
"You shouldn't make excuses for me. You deserve better,"
The spell broken, he rushed over to embrace her, telling her that it was okay, that she was the better that she thought he deserved, but still she pushed him away.
"You don't get it do you?"
He paused at the side of her bed, his words carefully chosen, "What I get is that after whatever happened yesterday…"
What did he mean by that?
"You think that it would change the way I feel about you, and you're just completely wrong,"
She could hardly believe what she was hearing. He actually thought this was about the kids? Had no one told him anything? She thought back to last night, how it must have seemed from his point of view.
Part of herself knew that she should tell him; her own advice to Hikari from a week ago leaping into her mind; but Hikari was missing and two more of their friends had died since she had boldly proclaimed those words as truth.
He didn't need honesty, he needed to be true to who he was and being with her was stopping him from doing that. Sure, ending her relationship with the only person she had ever truly loved was going to be hard on her, especially now, but deep down she knew she would be able to get through it.
If honesty was the pillar of a good relationship it made sense that lying would ruin one. And the lie she was about to tell was going to slice open his heart viscerally.