I looked through the pages.
What I saw wasn't possessive. It wasn't the gaze of someone who wanted to own the thing he was looking at. It was the gaze of someone who'd looked closely enough, for long enough, to see things I hadn't even known were visible — the specific tilt of my chin when I was deciding to be brave, the way my hands moved when I was talking myself into something.
"This is generous," I said. "What you've given me, just by drawing me like this. I don't think I've ever been looked at this carefully by anyone."
"You deserve to be looked at carefully," Duke said. "All the time. Not just by me."
I closed the book gently and handed it back.
"Thank you," I said. "For telling me. For not making it a burden. For—" I stopped, searching for the right shape of it. "For loving me
