Page 61 of The Grosvenor's Ghost
“Promise me you won’t go anywhere.”
“I promise—but not that I won’t die. No one can promise that.”
“Yeah,” he laughs once, quietly. “Just promise me you won’t leave like I did—don’t do that.”
“I have no reason to.”
Arthur pulls back, puts both of his arms around my shoulders and stares down at me.
“You do know why I left, don’t you?”
“Yeah, of course, I do.”
“I didn’t do it to hurt you. I had to. Me staying would’ve hurt you so much more, Phoebs.”
“I know.”
“Do you still hate me for it?” He asks with a hopefulness that I don’t have—which is weird because he knows me better than anyone.
“I’ve never hated you.” And then I frown. “Do you hate me? For being with Digby?”
He sighs. “I hate that you don’t know why you’re with him. I know you don’t love him.”
My mouth goes dry. “I do.”
“Does he make you happy?”
Think about it, think about how there’s nobody else here apart from us and how I’ve never lied to him in all my years of knowing him. Think about how I won’t start now.
“No.”
He lifts an eyebrow. “Do you love him?”
“No.”
He tips his head back, teeth sinking into his bottom lip. “I’m just going to say it, Phoebs—why don’t you leave him and be with me?”
I shake my head, reach up to move his arms off my shoulders and hold his hands instead. “It isn’t that easy.”
He searches my face with a frown, looking for the truth.
“You do want to be with me, don’t you?”
“Of course, I do! I miss being with you more than anything, Arthur!”
I tilt my head, press my tongue to the roof of my mouth, take some deep, heavy breaths.
“Then what—”
“I can’t be with you because I don’t want to hurt you!”
I didn’t realise I was crying until the saltiness slipped into my mouth.
Arthur walks the few steps between us, grasps my face between his hands. “Nothing you could do or say could hurt me in the same way that I know I hurt you, Phoebe.”
The Nightmare.
That would fucking ruin him.
