[He’s right, too, and Aubrey’s gnawed raw enough to recognize it. All she has left is this disgusting, brutal honesty, pungent as the blood seeping through the wood not far away.]

Because you’re more than a “passenger.” [Again with that tone, adrift on the shoreline.] You’ve only ever been you.

[Is that an accusation? A declaration? Aubrey knows damn well it explains nothing, and maybe she owes him more than that. But she already twisted herself into something unrecognizable, trying to forget everything that ever irked her about him—just so she could love him. Looking back, it’s terrifying. (That she tried? That, imperceptibly but suddenly all at once, she started to care?) Maybe it didn’t have to be him, but it was. And he’d call her an idiot for it all, she’s sure.

[She still loves him. She still wants to love him.

[Isn’t that fucking enough?]

Back when we first talked… you said you wanted to know my reasoning. That was all.

[Her focus drifts to that lifeless room. Maybe it did have to be Eren, actually. He told her exactly what she needed—in all the wrong ways.

[Shame she hasn’t stopped wanting to drown.]

Is that really true?