Next, we were burying our dead. My mother was grieving her loss while she forgot, I too, was grieving them. Love them, though in her eyes I had no right to be upset, they died because of me. They ignored the hierarchy because of me. I took everything from her, and she hasn’t let me forget that since.
“I shouldn’t have lived,” I say softly, more to myself than to him. The words fall from my mouth like stones into a bottomless well, disappearing into the void they leave behind. “They shouldn’t have died for me.”
His gaze snaps back to me then, sharp and piercing, as though he’s just now hearing what I’ve been saying all along. “Don’t say that,” he growls, his voice rough and raw with something that sounds suspiciously like pain. “You don’t get to decide whose life is worth more than someon
