The words stun me silent.
Three words. Simple. Declarative. Absolute.
I love him.
She says it like it's fact. Like it's inevitable. Like loving Giovanni Bavga is just the natural state of things and questioning it would be absurd.
"Emmaleen." My voice comes out rougher than I intend. "You can't?—"
"I can. I do." She shifts closer again, her face inches from mine. "I love him, Jino. I want to be here. With him. For him. Whatever that means."
"Even if it means this?" I gesture vaguely toward her body, the marks, the damage. "Even if it means letting him destroy you?"
"He's not destroying me." Soft. Certain. Terrifying in her conviction. "He's... reshaping me. Into something better. Something worthy of him."
No.
No, no, no.
This is exactly what I was afraid of. She's not in love with him. She's in love with her own erasure. With the idea that suffering equals devotion. That pain is the price of being chosen.
"You're wrong," I tell her.
"Am I?"
"Yes." I sit up, forcing her to adjust, to look at me fully. "You think this is love. You think what he's doing to you is some kind of... transformation. But it's not. It's destruction. Pure and simple. And you're letting it happen because you've confused abuse with affection."
She doesn't flinch. Doesn't look away. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"I knowexactlywhat I'm talking about. I've seen it before. I've trained submissives who?—"
"I'm notthem." Sharp now. Defensive. "Whatever you've seen before, whatever pattern you think I fit—I don't. This is different."
"It's not different. It's textbook. You've taken your trauma from your ex and?—"
"Don't." Her voice cuts like glass. "Don't youdarepsychoanalyze me. Don't reduce this to some kind of... repetition compulsion or whatever bullshit term you want to slap on it. I know what I'm doing. I know what I want."
"You want to be beaten until you can't sit? You want to be isolated, controlled, owned like property?"
"If that's what it takes."
"Takes forwhat?"
"To keep him!" The words explode out of her. Loud. Raw. "To make him see that I'm not like the others. That I won't leave. That I can handle whatever he throws at me and still be standing. Still behis."
Silence crashes down.
She's breathing hard. Chest heaving. Eyes bright with something between tears and fury.
I stare at her.
This is rejection. Pure, absolute rejection.
Not of me, specifically. But of everything I'm trying to offer. Every alternative I'm presenting. Every path that doesn't lead directly into Giovanni's arms—she's refusing it.
Pushing it away.
Choosing him instead.