Maya blinked hard. “Taylor—”
“No.” He leaned closer, eyes fixed on hers. “Let me say this badly if I have to. I am not offering pity. I am not trying to buy redemption. I am telling you that if there is a way forward, I want to be in it. And if you decide you don’t want that, I’ll respect it. But don’t tell me I feel nothing just because you’re afraid to believe otherwise.”
The room went very quiet after that.
Maya had spent months assuming the most dangerous thing in her life was the condition inside her chest. Suddenly there was something else: hope, returning in a shape she had not invited and did not know how to trust.
She said, barely above a whisper, “I don’t want to be saved.”
Taylor’s expression softened—not into pity, not quite, but into something that felt harder earned. “Then don’t be saved,” he said. “Fight. And let me stand there while you do.”
