" They wanted me to be so much more.”
“I’m so sorry August. You deserve better than that.”
He grimaces and rifles through another stack of canvases. “I’m not so sure.”
I think of him last night, of him offering to help me clean the vase. Him escorting me to the cellar and insisting on staying with me so I didn’t have to be alone. Him offering to talk to the cook on my behalf.
If I’d known how uncomfortable doing those things had made him, how much he was pushing beyond his fears in order to help someone he’d just met…
Maybe I’ve had the wrong idea about him—and maybe his family has, too. "

― Jessica S. Olson , A Forgery of Roses