Astrid blinked in surprise at Michaels sudden clarity. Hearing say that he believed that her feelings for Jude didn’t change the way she felt for him, had given her hope, that maybe, just maybe, this could work out without too many hurt feelings. The fact that he believed her, to her, meant that he trusted her feelings for him. And now, after she had used so many words just to try to work up the nerve to say she couldn’t and wouldn’t choose, he managed to say it in three words. Three short words.
“Thank you,” she told him, though she wanted to tell him so much more. She wanted to tell him, that a lifetime with him was all she needed, but that would be a lie. She wanted to give him an eternity, but that wasn’t true either, because an eternity washed out the intensity of a lifetime, and she refused to dilute or diminish what he was giving her, which was almost literally everything he could give her.
“We’ll find a way,” she promised him. “We’ll make it work. And I don’t know how to say-“ It frustrated her, that she just didn’t have the words to let him know what she would give him. There was a reason eternity was reserved for the gods and their servants. She sighed with frustration, before she reached up to cup his cheek, hoping to find the right words as she looked at him. “I believe in you,” she started softly. “I believe in us, and since a lifetime is all we can have, I will happily take that.