Carefully, he crouched to pick up her glasses. When he straightened, he looked straight at her, dark eyes seeking out hers. "Godsfuck, Alyosha, I don't need—yes. I mean it." His free hand was on her shoulder, his look anxiously tender. "I'm certain I mean it. Please. It would—I can't tell you how it would—"

A weight off my shoulders? That wasn't right; sounded as if he were trying to put it onto her shoulders instead. No, all he wanted was the knowledge that she would take them. The idea struck a chord in him which made him feel as if something might go right for once; that they might scrape away the muck of bad decisions and panic and difficult choices and find, beneath it, something worth the work and the pain. "It seems right to me, and kindest to us all."