I don't think you a fool, Raven. I think you idealistic. Optimistic. Naive. Proud. I'm under no illusions about the hell that you've been through. Lord knows, I was there for so much of it. But you can find your feet again in a way that I've forgotten how to do.

You forget that you can't heal every wound that crosses your path. I don't know that you grasp how difficult it is for we non-empaths to heal our own, when our entire world and half our soul has been ripped away in a heartbeat. I don't think you want to accept that I've been wounded in a way you can't fix. Truth be told, I don't think you understand even now just what the nature of those wounds really is.

To me, those three words are a promise that I can't keep. And hearing them only makes me feel worse. It only serves as a reminder that I'm too broken to return them the way you deserve.

Then you should stop hiding from me out of fear that I will.

In your room in the dorms, where I'm not allowed to go? Kaeleer, a world away? You hide, Raven. You hide from everyone, when you're afraid that somebody thinks ill of you. You hide from human contact at all, when you think that you might get hurt if you open yourself up to it.

In that, you're not all that different from me, I suppose.