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"He was my best friend," Nico choked out

"I know Butit’s different with Clancy, isn’t it?" I said quietly "Rules don’t apply when you love soht? It’s not like how you loved Jude, or the way I love Chubs"

I’d known it the moment I saw his face in Clancy’s ed sobs were only part of it It was the way Nico had held the other boy, how he’d fed him and cleaned him with every ounce of tenderness he had in hinize it in yourself

"You trusted him, and he took your words and twisted thery with you for believing hi you did But I know firsthand that people are capable of doing things for the people they love that they never would have considered before"

Nico buried his face in his hands, letting out a shuddering breath

"I didn’t ," he whispered "I trusted hi to help us and I thought"

"You thought that he would help keep us away and safe, didn’t you?" I finished for him "I know It sounds to me like maybe you fell into my pattern for a while there"

"I don’t knohy--I knerong, that it was bad, but he was good When I knew hiood and he helped me And I just extrapolated it would apply to everyone else The only reason you were there was because I forecast the results incorrectly I didn’t factor all of his behavioral outliers in" His voice became so small, I had to lean in that much closer to hear hi in hi you explain For acting the way I did and not being there for you"

"I have to fix this," he said, voice ragged, "I have toabout all of the other outcomes we could have had Vida said if you hadn’t been there ouldn’t have had the cure, but we don’t have it, do we? It was for nothing"

It was a punch to the gut I felt tears spring to ht to hold theedy upon tragedy upon tragedy And I’d ignored him, punished hiether He didn’t have anyone to help hih this We’d stranded him out in a dark sea without sohim by the shoulders "You’ve done so ure out another way"

"You have no logical reason to trust me," Nico said

"You ood at listening to logic"