“The answer was yes, I just thought the proverbial sidewalk had a bit more to go before it cut off into someone’s lawn.”

Here, like this, he can taste the bitterness of his own convictions. Any comfort at all on the topic of his eye was one he’d taken easily, but doing the same now feels… unsavory. Unfair. It shouldn’t matter how Darcy postures if he’s the one who’s supposed to know better. It shouldn’t matter how used he is to dying if he’s supposed to be better. And it isn’t fair to Ossie either, who doesn’t know anything about the loop or his reservations around being a dad. It’s his own fault, really, just as the rest of this is.

“A little. I can’t claim familiarity with her work, though. Why?”