Emberwood Remember when you said you loved me?

Bronco's words were hard to understand, but fortunately Fennec was pretty skilled at listening. Even with that, she thought she hadn't heard correctly. She'd been silently sucking it up for months now and struggling with the feelings of isolation it brought on, and for what? Now that it was finally out there, Bronco immediately validated it. Of course he did - but she hadn't thought he would. She'd been expecting the worst this entire time.

If you still need space, or if anything about this isn't what you want, we can end it. It didn't start right anyway. I don't want to force you into something you don't want. I just need more than this. She should have brought this up sooner. If she had, maybe they could have worked this out. Even if he said this was exactly what he wanted, Fennec knew better than to expect change to come within a week.

I don't need kids this year. Fuck you for making me want them, though. Her lip twitched up in a small, sardonic smile. Her instincts were screaming at her otherwise, but Fennec knew she wasn't like her mom. Single motherhood had sucked. We can work on it, if you want. But we don't have to.

It hurt to feel like he didn't trust her, but the river went both ways, didn't it? She hadn't trusted him to take this well and definitely didn't trust him to actually tell her what he wanted. It was fucked up, actually.