"Well, I'm not Little Red Riding Hood anymore, now, am I?" She laughed. "Seriously. They don't know who you are. But I do and your father does, and so does Felix, and you're not disappointing me. You love me. You love who I was and you're afraid of losing that person. That's not disappointing."
"I think it should be."
"It was all theoretical to you," she said. "That you might share the gift with me, that I might die if you didn't. It was theoretical to you that you had it. It all happened too quickly for you."
"That's the truth," he said.
"Look, I don't expect anything of you that you can't give," she said. "Only allow me this. Allow me to be part of all of you, even if you and I can't be lovers anymore. Allow that, that I'll be part of you and Felix and Thibault and …"
"Of course, yes. Do you think they would ever allow me to drive you away? Do you think for a minute I'd do that? Laura!"
"Reuben, there isn't a man alive who doesn't feel possessive of the woman he loves, who doesn't want to control his access to her and her access to him and his world."
"Laura, I know all that—."
"Reuben, you have to be feeling something about the fact that they gave me the Chrism, whether you wanted them to do it or not, that they made their decision about me and with me essentially without seeing me as part of you. And I made my decision the same way."
"As it should be, for the love of—."
He stopped.
"I don't like what I'm finding out about myself," he said. "But this is life and death, and it's your choice. And do you think I could endure it if they'd left it up to me, if they'd treated you as if you were my possession?"
"No, I don't," she said. "But we can't always reason with our feelings."
"Well, I love you," he said. "And I will accept this. I will. I will love you as much after as I love you now. My feelings might not listen to reason. But I'm giving them a direct order."
She laughed. And he did in spite of himself.