“Not one thing.

Whatever you have seen, whatever you now know, you keep it from him.” I nodded, firmly, and I meant it.

I did not fully understand yet what I was agreeing to guard.

But I understood that this frightened, paralyzed, clear-eyed man was asking me to be, for a little while, the only ally he had left in the world, and something in me had already decided to say yes.

I have wondered, since, why I did.