You always think you can control what I want. Control what I think. Control what I prioritise. [Normally, it would have annoyed her to no end, but he'd been doing that from the very beginning. And now, it just... It amused some part of her. She wasn't certain how that had started, and yet it had.] You can't. I'm my own person. I make my own decisions. I choose what I feel. I choose what's important to me. You don't have to agree with it, but you can't otherwise change it.

[...But it was a little endearing that he tried.

She suspected there really was no way to conceal that racing heart she'd acquired more often in his presence. The warm thrum of blood as it coursed along her insides. The gentle heat that settled into her cheeks when she realised how close he drew her to him. In the sunset, perhaps there couldn't have been a more perfect backdrop. If the situation had been different, she might have likened it to something romantic.

Even with things as they were, it was romantic. She could certainly be reminded of the way he'd turned her heart, though when that had started to happen, she couldn't quite say. She would have much rather thought about that than to think about the prospect of him leaving.

Her gaze could hardly focus on him, feeling just a touch faint, quite possibly the depth of her feelings for him in tandem with that close proximity. Just touching him she felt compelled to touch him more. To learn him and memorise him with her fingertips. She thought other things, at that, the kinds of things that he might have thought her too innocent to consider. What it might have been like to pull her lips across his chilled skin, something that really, truly didn't bother her much. But the thought itself, the way he held her, the truth in her words, all of it left her with a soft, shuddered breath.]

Am I...? [She asked him quietly. Hushed.] You wouldn't have me any other way, I think. Sometimes... the difficult things are worth having.