"Do you feel it now?" she cried, tears spilling freely. "It's just a taste of what I go through every single night when I'm away from you!"
His breath came in ragged bursts. His usually unshakable calm was cracking, splintering like glass beneath pressure.
"I didn't know...." he choked out. "I didn't want...."
"No, you didn't want to care!" she screamed. "As long as I was alive and obedient and tucked out of your perfect little world, it didn't matter if I was in pain. It didn't matter that I couldn't sleep, or eat, or walk some days without collapsing. But now... now you feel it."
She took a step closer. "And this is nothing, Shen Xiao. This is a paper cut compared to what I have lived with for years."
He looked at her bleeding arm, then into her eyes, which were wild, broken, and defiant.
"You have made your point," he said tightly, jaw clenched. "Enough."
