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He wants me, but he doesn’t want to. It’s obvious in a thousand different ways. And slowly I begin to understand that when he answered “as long as it takes” when I asked how long he would keep me here, he meant as long as it would take for him to work it all out in his head. I think the biggest monkey wrench in his progress is my continued refusal to beg him to let me go. Refusal isn’t the right word. It’s more like disinterest. To my profound surprise, I’ve discovered that I like it here. I like the clean air and the quiet. I like seeing a million stars at night. I like the simple rituals of meals, baths, and bedtime, of Poe knocking on the window with his beak every few days for treats. I don’t even mind it when Mal has to leave me for hours or sometimes days to go into the city,
- Writer
