He removed his hand from mine but I caught it. I pressed his palm to my lips and kissed the cool flesh. His fingers uncurled against my cheek, his head bent closer to mine. "Ah, Emily, I'm so sorry."
I heaved in a breath. It was difficult with my chest feeling so tight but I did it. "I won't accept your apology, Jacob. You wouldn't have hurt me. I know that like I know I can see the dead. You worried about my health when I got wet and you even warned me to stay away from Whitechapel. That's not the actions of a man who wanted me to die."
He shook his head and pulled his hand free. "I didn't want to hurt you and I didn't want to see you get hurt. The thought of you being ill or in pain...I couldn't bear it. I wanted the end result without you feeling even a moment's discomfort. Until..." His eyes shuttered closed.
"Tonight."
His nod was slight and I would have missed it if I hadn't been watching him so intently. "I can't explain how I felt," he went on, opening his eyes again. "Perhaps I was drunk from fighting the demon, or frustrated from spending so much time with you and not being able to claim you as I wanted to, or perhaps I was all too aware that our time together was limited."
I let his words settle before I spoke what had been on my mind for some time. "So the other night when you left my room abruptly, it wasn't because you realized I would grow old and ugly while you stayed young and handsome?"
He suddenly laughed. "Oh Emily, I do adore you."
I frowned. It had been a perfectly serious question. "Your exact words were: 'What if I grow weary watching you wait?'." I could never forget them. They were branded on my memory.
He reached up and touched my hair, curling it around his finger as I had done earlier. His laughter vanished just as rapidly as it had erupted. "I was afraid I would...do something terrible to you if the waiting became unbearable for either of us. It had nothing to do with you aging while I didn't. That's why I left that night, not because I didn't want to stay with you forever but because I didn't want to encourage your affections any more than I already had. I didn't want you to love me, you see. Knowing how you felt about me only made it harder not to think about you joining me in the Waiting Area, and in the Otherworld when I'm able to cross. I began to justify your death to myself after that." He turned away and buried his head in his hands. "Oh God, Emily, don't you see?"