My fingernails cut into my palms as I finally face him in the light. He looks just as I remember—eyes the color of a clear sky at noon, surrounded by rough features, like someone chiseled them out of stone. He looks just as ruggedly handsome as I remember.

Sven.

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. None of the boiling heat, none of the shock, just...nothing. The rushing power I felt vanishes under his gaze. He smiles, as if he knows everything in my mind, and says one word.

"Darwin."

*    *    *

I wake with a gasp. The name rings in my ears. Darwin. What is Darwin?

I mean, I know what Darwin could be. But I don't think it's referring to the open-source operating system that Apple has been basing its product off for years. Charles Darwin? Survival of the fittest, maybe? But why would Sven want to remind me of that?

Sven. The dream melts away as reality flares like an out-of-control wildfire, burning everything in its path and leaving nothing but ashes. I sit up, trying to decipher my surroundings. I don't remember laying down; I don't even remember sitting. Did I faint? Just shut off, like a crashed program that needs to be restarted? Something so broken that it can't even run? I spin on the spot, as if looking for someone to fix me.

Is this what a race condition feels like? When two separate threads try to access the same variable at the same time, to modify or read its value without knowledge of each other? I suppose Sven is the variable, and I've just accidentally tried to access him without knowing that someone was there first.

Sven kissed someone else. The knowledge sears like a hot brand, yet I shiver and hug myself fruitlessly against the cold.

But it wouldn't even matter if I had my coat; the chill comes from inside. I gasp as I feel it take hold, starting in my heart and racing outwards through my veins until it coats every inch of skin. I shake violently, acutely aware of its hold on me, like Sven's on that woman. It freezes my lungs and suffocates me, something so intense that I want to run, even though I can't leave it behind.

What's happening to me? I wonder as my chattering teeth make the world vibrate. I stand in the darkness that has fallen since I passed out and try to get my bearings. What do I do now? Go home? That feels like defeat. Find a hotel? I have no money. Ask a friend for a place to stay? I can't bear to explain the reason, to bare my shame to the world. I'm neither smart enough, nor good enough. If I had been either, this wouldn't have happened.

All I can do is start moving. Everything is hazy, like I'm viewing the world through a thick layer of clouds—the fluffy, cheerful white kind that you look for shapes in, only the shapes I see are all ugly. Sinister. Witches with crooked fingers and gapped, evil smiles. Cloaked men who flit from shadow to shadow behind me as I walk. They all dissipate as I enter the din of the train station, but the world feels no more real.

I thank the lucky stars that I keep my train card in my pants pocket, rather than my jacket. I feel the stares as I board, everybody looking at the broken one in their midst. The defective one. The one nobody wants.

I remember the last time I sat on this train in a miserable cascade of thoughts revolving around Sven. Then, I hadn't texted him to say I would be late. Is it any wonder he ran to someone else? Why should he be thinking of me, carving a spot in his life for me, when I couldn't even set aside a few seconds for him?

I disembark at our usual stop. My feet carry me to our front door, and I hesitate. I don't have my keys. If the door is locked, I have nowhere to go. If it's unlocked, Sven is inside.

I don't know which to hope for.

I reach for the knob and exhale carefully when it turns. I push the door open and step inside. It's warm, the lights are on, but no one is in sight.

What do I do? Grab my stuff and go, hoping Sven doesn't notice me? Or do I let him explain? I remember what Davis said as he handed the ring back to me. Give it back. It's too late for that, but not for the sentiment.

I can get a hotel. That way no one else needs to know what happened. I won't have to relive—

I stop in my tracks as I notice a note folded into quarters on the table. With trembling hands, I unfold it and recognize Sven's handwriting.

You need to be alone right now. I won't come home tonight. We can talk in the morning, if you decide to stick around, but I won't make you stay. All I want right now is to know you have a warm place to stay tonight. I love you, Ronnie. I always will.

I stare at those three words. I love you. Does he? My mind is still a jumble, and sorting through the logic is like trying to untangle a string of Christmas lights that haven't been used in ten years.

He must mean it. Sven doesn't say things he doesn't mean. But what about the woman? I didn't imagine that; he wouldn't react this way if it hadn't happened.

Where is he? If he checked into a hotel, someone must have recognized him. What if we end up in tabloids? Why would Sven Karlsson spend the night in a hotel in the city he lives in? Because his engagement is falling apart and he couldn't go home.

I groan, folding myself onto the couch and holding my head. Something desperate grabs me by the throat, squeezing tightly. I stand up again, feeling an itch under my skin. It demands only that I move, as if something unnamed yet terrible might happen if I don't. I pace. I hold myself, shivering. I sit back down and have to jiggle my legs. The house closes in on me, and I realize the truth.

I hate being alone.

I hate it more than if he'd been home. After everything, I still want to see him. Like some core part of me was designed just to need him close.

The up-and-down of my knee stops. Everything stops. The claws around my throat loosen.

What is wrong with me?

And why does my mind stop racing as soon as I realize that I still love Sven just as much as I always have?

But I don't have the energy to fight it, so I give myself to him in his absence and lay down, curling myself around my own solitude.

*    *    *

An infinite loop is exactly what it sounds like: A loop that never stops executing, because its condition of execution always evaluates to true. So the code inside runs over, and over, and over, and everything that was supposed to happen when the loop was finished never does.

My mind runs in one of those loops as I lay on the couch and close my eyes. I think about how much I love Sven. Then I recall the image of him kissing that woman and ask myself why I wasn't good enough. Why didn't I love him more? I can; I will. I do. I love Sven. But he kissed her....

And on, and on. Dizzying circles pull me back as I drift off, never letting me relax enough to escape completely. I slip in and out of feverish dreams, not like the vivid ones about death. These are real—flashes of Sven, of him telling me he loves me, of him on one knee at the end of a trail of red rose petals, telling me that what he feels is enough to pledge the rest of his life to me. His little texts throughout the day. The tiniest brushes of his hands during the most mundane moments that always bring me comfort.

It's no surprise that the soft click of the front door rouses me from this half-sleep. Sven stumbles into the entrance, wearing a rumpled white dress shirt and a lopsided tie, as if he only came home long enough to write the note and rush off without even bothering to change or pack a pair of pajamas. His hair is unbrushed, and though he has a raging case of bedhead, he looks like he hasn't slept a wink. I never bothered turning off the lights last night, and the dark circles under his eyes are glossy and purple in their glow.

He stutters to a stop when I sit up, his lips parting as he blinks hard, as if to make sure I'm real. He looks half-drugged from sleep deprivation and hopeful shock.

"You stayed," he finally whispers.

I pull myself up straighter. "I...did," I say slowly, because I am still here, but it isn't exactly on purpose. But if I'm honest, was I really going to leave anyway?

I guess it doesn't really matter now.

"Ronnie." Sven rushes toward me and falls to his knees in front of me. He grabs my hands, pressing his thumbs almost painfully hard into my palms so that I can feel his desperation. "I love you. With not just my heart, with my soul. All of it. I would sign it away just to be near you. I promise you."

I stare at him, speechless. I can feel the furrow above my nose where my eyebrows have drawn together. Sven Karlsson is begging on his knees in front of me. My brain can't comprehend the sight of him, leaning toward me, his eyes wide and his grip still needy on my hands.

Sven doesn't need anything. He has his own company, he's built everything from scratch into a successful empire. He could have anything and anyone, but as he sits there, it feels a little bit like he needs me, and a small thrill singes my spine.

"What happened?" is all I can ask.

"She kissed me," he blurts at once. "I swear to God, Ronnie. I swear to you. On my own grave."

"You kissed her back." I choke on the words, afraid that when they hit the open air they'll roar to life like a bonfire. "Why?"

Sven's hold on my hands loosens as he deflates. He bites his lips, then looks away. He uses one hand to cover his mouth; the other slips from my lap as he runs it through his hair, sitting back.

My breathing becomes shallow as my stomach swoops. "Sven, do you really love me?"

"Yes." He puts more emphasis on that word than I thought possible.

"I don't believe you."

The words just pop out, surprising me. Sven's head snaps up too, his eyes wide.

"I'm sorry," I hurry to clarify. "But if you love me, why won't you tell me? Why can't you be honest?"

"I've always been honest with you, Ronnie. But the only thing worse than lying to you is hurting you."

"If it's the truth, you won't hurt me. I just want to understand."

"You won't," he sighs.

"Try me," I insist.

"Ronnie...."

"Sven. Please." I hear the tremble in my voice and hate it. Why does my body always betray me when my brain is fully functional? But I press on. "I can't believe you unless I understand. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

It's the closest I can come to saying I'll leave.

I see the ultimatum sink in, and he slouches forward, rubbing at his eyes. When he takes his hands away, they're red, but tears have yet to arrive.

"I'm not who you think I am," he says. "I'm...."

He bows his head, and my stomach sinks as I wonder what confession he's going to drop on me.

"I'm so fucking needy," he finally breathes. "I'm sorry, Ronnie, I'm not like you. And I know I play it off like I don't care, like I'm confident, but it's a show during the day. No one wants an insecure CEO, but that's what I am and sometimes I just want to show it at home. I know I'm an idiot. But I want to be myself, I'm just...I can't. I can't need constant validation from you, because I—you—I can't." He closes his eyes. "I don't want to say this to you, Ronnie."

"Say it." I stare at him, waiting, because I think I know but I want to be sure.

But instead, he asks me a question. "Do you love me?"

"Of course," I answer without hesitation.

"I guess I'm not always as sure of that as you are," he mumbles. "I—I know that you don't feel what the rest of us feel. I don't want to push you. But those little things—those stupid texts I send you—I'm just desperate. I don't want to say it's not hard for you, that you're not trying, because I know it is and you are. But it's hard for me, too. To wonder if I actually mean anything to you."

I sit back, my breath whooshing past my lips as if I've been punched in the gut. I knew it was coming, but hearing it is still like a knife right to the chest. Like watching your life preserver sink into the ocean right as you reach for it.

I've been sitting here all night thinking that Sven doesn't love me. Every second of torture, of loneliness, of drowning—he's been living that for two years.

Because of me.

I spring to my feet, and Sven looks up from the ground, but he makes no move to rise.

"Hate me," he whispers. "I know you hate me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

He sinks closer to the floor, his nose almost touching it, and something about seeing his powerful form curled and broken snaps me, too.

"I don't hate you." My eyes roam the wall as I speak, because I can't look at him. Not because of what he's done, but because of what I've made him. I've reduced Sven Karlsson, one of the country's mightiest tech moguls, to a blubbering mess in his own house.

"I don't hate. And maybe I don't love, either." I swallow painfully around my thickening throat. "But maybe I do, you know? Maybe it's not exactly what you experience, but nothing ever is, between two people. All I know is that all night, I was terrified of losing you. Of having to walk out that door, of having to make that decision. After everything, the thought of it just...."

I stare at the ceiling, searching for some feeling, any drop of something tangibly labeled "love," but I can't see it in my head.

"I can't imagine my life without you, Sven. I don't know how else to define loving someone. But I need you. It's like someone programmed you into me, and without you, nothing works right."

At the last sentence, he raises his gaze to me, his eyes faraway. He just watches me, his expression unreadable, but he looks in the process of having a revelation.

"What?" I ask, breathless from my monologue.

He seems to catch himself, sitting up straighter. "I think that's the sweetest thing you've ever said to me."

I tilt my head. It didn't sound sweet. It sounded like a socially incompetent computer nerd failing to communicate with the rest of functional society.

"That you're my operating system?" I ask, my skepticism clear in my arched brow.

"Yes." He rises to his knees again, the intensity of his stare burning into my eyes. "Ronnie, are you saying...are you...will you stay?"

I hear the bubble of hope that pushes the question past his lips, and I melt. I can't blame him for feeling insecure. I can't fault him for wondering what he is to me. But now he knows.

"Yes," I say.

His eyes soften, a smile pushing lines into the corners of his mouth, and he plants his right foot on the floor in front of him but keeps his left knee grounded.

"Then...." He fishes in his pocket for a second, then holds out a small, shiny object. As I step closer, I recognize my ring. "Will you take this back? You dropped it on the sidewalk yesterday...."

He trails off, but if he anticipated having to wait, he was wrong. I hold out my hand and let him slip the ring back into place. He stands, still holding onto me, and then pulls me closer, leaning down to kiss me hungrily.

"God, that feels so right," he murmurs, resting his forehead against mine.

"Yes," I agree, warmth spreading from his skin to mine. "It does."