Hieronymous Grabiner was not well-liked by many people. In fact, most people would say that he was a cruel man who delighted in torturing students. Some might even say that last September he set a student's notebook on fire when he thought they weren't paying attention. It sounded ridiculous, and a tad extreme, but that last one was true. It wasn't that he was a cruel man, or even an angry man, but he had been angry that day and bitter for a good long while before that. He believed, at least to a certain extent, that fear instilled order, and he was determined to wield that fear of him and shape it into a tool of education. Because of his gruff demeanor, many people didn't think twice about his methods, or his motives behind them. They just knew enough to be afraid, and to stay away.

But Hieronymous Grabiner was also loved by a girl who saw through the mask he wore, and saw that he was afraid of letting people in, and so he had to push her away. But he had been forced to marry her, through his own mistakes, and the next year he had almost lost his life due to another student's sick plan of revenge. She had almost died, and the truth was that she came a lot closer to dying than he had, lying on the gym floor with her head in his lap, blabbering about how she loved him and how it wasn't his fault. Of course it was his fault. She was not the first girl who died because she cared about him. This girl was lucky. Her life had been spared, and she should go spend the rest of her life, a long and happy life, without him.

But for some reason that idea couldn't stick in his head. She had yelled at him. She had been telling him things that he had known all along, spitting arguments that he had expected she would use, and that was why it had been so easy to ignore her. He had been using the same arguments against himself, and so he knew every counterargument there was. He felt that there was nothing she would say that he hadn't already thought of to sway his opinion. But then she had said something he had never expected her to say: Even if you love me, you're not going to forget her. He had mentioned Violet to her a grand total of two times, and yet she had still understood what he was most afraid of. It was almost concerning to him how she had seen right through him. Potsdam saw through him, of course, but that was another matter entirely. She had years and years of practice worming her way through his defenses. But this girl, who had known him for scarcely over a year, was able to see what he was truly afraid of and called him on it without the slightest fear of trepidation.

But that worked both ways, as he knew what she was afraid of as well. Right before she had thrown herself through the window and disappeared in what had been a ridiculous, dramatic, stupid – but impressive – move on her part, he had cast an empathy spell, and it surprised him to feel the same hesitation and doubts, the same fear that flowed through him. She hadn't been lying when she said she knew exactly how he felt, caught in a tangled web of hypotheticals.

The thing that scared him the most was that she wasn't bluffing. She wasn't going to live this down. She was going to be struggling the rest of her life with what Damien had done to her, and that scared him. He thought the marriage could just end and things would be better for her, if he was out of her life, but she had told him that wasn't true. And she was right, it wasn't. She had lost her parents, and although he could tell she was trying not to let it affect her, it cut her deep. She had been manipulated into letting them go, and she wasn't going to be able to forgive herself for that so easily.

In a way, she was right about another thing too. He didn't know her. Not really. He had been surprised to see how alone she had felt around Valentine's Day, and he was more surprised when he found out that that boy had been stalking her and she hadn't done anything about it, staying in her room all day like he did. He had at first thought that that he had been an increasingly negative influence on her, but he was beginning to suspect that she was developing these habits on her own, shutting herself off from the people around her. He thought ending the marriage might force her to rely on them more, might force her to make new friends…

…but could she, after this? Could she, really? The whole school had their memories altered because of her. Minnie had taken a vow of silence because of her; her roommates had had their memories substantially altered because of her. And granted it had not been directly her fault, but he could understand if they didn't exactly forgive her for it. And how exactly was she supposed to make new friends? She had gotten close to Tommy, and it turned out that he wasn't just some overzealous boy with a crush; he was a villain in disguise, who had been preying on her for months, slowly getting her to drop her guard around him. Who was to say that the next boy or girl she met wouldn't be someone else trying to take advantage of her? Trying to steal her memories while her back was turned? No, she was going to be crippled by an unrelenting wave of paranoia every time she met someone new. Her roommates had abandoned her, Potsdam had straight-up used her, and now he was turning his back on her too. And then she would be alone. Then she really wouldn't have anyone.

I give you my kindness and my courage. He thought about how she had agreed to marry him without throwing a fuss, how he had said he didn't want to demean himself by kissing her that day. It wasn't easy for her, even with the feelings she had towards him; she had made that painfully clear in her diary. Every step of the way he had given her a hard time, threatening to lock her in the dungeons when the whole school found out about them, and yet she had persisted. She was kind to him, bringing him soup when he was sick, and been courageous to him, standing up for herself and their relationship the night of the May Day ball.

And then, just a few days ago, she had confronted Damien in the gym and though she had been stupid, she had not been afraid, trying in vain to snap his neck when she had run out of magic, to reaching out to him to try to sever the marriage so that he would live if she had died. That last one really struck a nerve with him, and he was almost appalled by her selflessness. And then she had volunteered to die first, despite the fact that he had been screaming in her head to just turn on him, to let him die in her place. And the stupid way she had tried to smile at him, to say that it would all be okay with the bones of her ribcage poking through her skin… Even while she was literally on death's doorstep, she was still honoring her vows, giving him her courage, doing whatever she could to ensure that he was safe.

Even when she hadn't remembered him, what had he really done to protect her? Not that much, besides pulling her closer and pushing her away again, like a child that couldn't make up his mind. She was right, he was a child. She was kind and courageous and selfless and brave and smart and honest and he was selfish. He was a coward. And all she wanted was a little piece of himself, and he wouldn't even give her that much.

He shuddered and looked down at the bottle that he was drinking, pushing it away. He had watched her give up everything for him. He had watched her suffer. He had watched her struggle as she thought she was losing her mind. He had watched her lose her parents and he had watched her throw herself out a window just to get him to actually listen to her.

He stood up. He had to at least explain himself. He at least owed her that much.