Jade Fern Grove the seeds of love have taken hold and if we don't burn together, i'll burn alone

All at once, it hit him - he'd done a very wrong thing. He'd been making very wrong choices, had been living a very wrong life. She was so small, and still so young standing in front of him, telling him that he couldn't have both. Something he should've known. Something she shouldn't have to think about - certainly not about him. It was tragic. He'd made her tragic, and hurt, and alone. He taken from her; perhaps far more than she knew.

I'm supposed to be your uncle, he wanted to say, but he knew she'd think it an excuse, rather than something he was admitting to. I'm supposed to be your uncle, and I'm sorry I made you feel this way. He'd thought he hid it so well, but she'd known the things he thought of her, and it'd corrupted her until it turned them into this.

"I know," he said, and his voice sounded like a stranger's. He looked at her - he looked until it hurt - and couldn't find it in him to try and stop her any longer. She would be better off without him, and later on, he would admit that he'd be better off without her. At least for a while. At least until he could exorcise this demon from within him, this thing that'd grown until it enveloped her, too. "I'm sorry," he said, but the words felt cheap. And then, "I am your family, Adeline. Even if you don't want to be mine. I won't try to stop you, but you can always come back."