She wipes her nose. “No, I haven’t told him yet.”
Again, I wait, sensing there’s more.
“It’s not that I think he’ll run,” she explains haltingly. “That’s the problem, actually. He won’t run. Hell, he’ll probably drop to one knee right there in the kitchen and propose with a Ring Pop.” She exhales. “It’s just that I don’t want us to be together because of an accident. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering if he stayed out of obligation instead of love.”
I think about that for a minute. I meant what I told her a moment ago: She’s the most independent person I’ve ever met. She’s feisty and feminine, proud and powerful, and I love her to death for those things.
But if I’ve learned anything over the last weeks and months, it’s that sometimes, our greatest strengths are a resul
