That was the thing, though. They didn't both know. Because while they had both been convinced that this relationship was on a timer, their reasons for why that was true were vastly different.

"That...that isn't how you lose me," she said, words painful and halting, like sandpaper over scars. "This ends as it always ends. When you leave."

He felt her tense, the way her body did every time she was about to Planeswalk. But she stayed, even when every muscle vibrated with the desire to run.

"It is not your presence that will end it, but your absence."