"There was a window. You had taken off out the door on a story, and I didn't want to interrupt, and I thought would be back quickly... I thought... a lot of things really."
He rubbed his face.
"I thought that you didn't need me, that you were better without me, that I complicated your life. I thought, if I was gone a short time, things would be better for both of us."
He looked at her.
"I messed up, and screwed up badly. Miscalculating the time for travel, and what had happened between us, and ... everything. In the end, I wasn't so super."