I get about thirty seconds alone in my bedroom before Eliot bursts through the door without knocking. I knew he'd take it hard when I told everyone my decision, but couldn't he give me just a couple of minutes of peace?

"This isn't happening," Eliot says without preamble, slamming the door shut behind him. "I'm sorry, Q, but it's not."

I run a tired hand over my face. "I honestly don't think it's your decision to make."

"Q," he says, his eyes bright with moisture and his voice anxious. "Q, why?"

I look away, unable to meet that mournful pleading expression. It would be easier if I could convince myself I was just pissed off, instead of feeling this hopeless yearning. "Magic is gone because of me. This is how I put it right."

"Bullshit. That's bullshit. You did not act alone, this is not all on you, you can't just give up everything - "

"Eliot," I interrupt, pinching between my brows. "I've made my choice, and I've explained myself, so I don't think there's any point in rehashing - "

"Quentin, what about the people who love you? How is this fair to Alice? And Julia? And - me? How can you - "

Oh, he cannot be fucking serious with this line of argument. I'm so tired. So tired and so angry, and the way he's looking at me right now is completely unfair.

"What's the alternative?" I snap, my voice hardening. "Because all I hear is you and everyone else telling me I can't do this, but I'm not hearing a different plan."

"We come up with something. We come up with something together, Q, like we always do."

I laugh, an unkind, humorless sound, watching with grim satisfaction as it sets him back on his heels. "Oh, sure. Together. That's - that's funny, coming from you."

Dangerous territory, this. I've been so careful not to show anger or heartbreak recently. Everything is fine between us. Normal. Great. But if there's anyone who can push my buttons, it's Eliot Waugh. Ever since that rejection, his pitying insistence that a relationship between us would be a stupid idea, I've tried to pretend nothing happened. Most of the time, he seems on the same page - but then he bursts into my room with unshed tears and talks about finding a way together, and...

I'm just so tired.

Eliot frowns at me, half concerned, half angry. "I don't think that goddamn attitude is called for, Quentin. You're the one about to do something stupid and - "

"And what?" I cut him off, rising to my feet. "Leave everyone behind? Sacrifice myself for the greater good? Isn't that what we're supposed to do?"

He steps closer, his voice dropping. "Not when there might be another way."

The air crackles between us, tension thick enough to cut with a knife. All the weeks of unspoken pain, all the memories of our life together that he's dismissed so casually, rise to the surface like bile."

"You can't just keep doing this," I say, my voice breaking despite my efforts to stay calm. "Act like what we had meant nothing."

Eliot's expression shifts, something like pain flickering across his face. "Q..."

"What?" I challenge, stepping closer, our chests almost touching. "You going to tell me again how terrible our life was? How you suffered through it?"

His eyes widen, truly seeing me for the first time. "That's not what I meant..."

"Then what did you mean?" I demand, the question hanging in the charged air between us.