She let her head rest on his shoulder and she closed her eyes. "Please? Can we just.. Try? Don't leave." Maybe their family would never match the ideal in her mind, but there had to be something better than this.
"Just...pretend, if you have to," she said, her voice strained by a choked-back sob. It hurt to even think that, and she could feel the diamond starting to wrap around her fingertips and start spreading slowly upward in an effort to protect herself from the emotional pain.