He doesn't answer. Because the truth is worse than a lie: he knows exactly how. But loving her safely would require him to become someone else. And he has spent too long becoming this.
And Beauty? She is the only one who sees the cost. Later, in the car, his hands are shaking. Not from adrenaline—from the effort of restraint. She takes those hands. She does not say "You're a good man." She says "I saw you choose not to." That is their love language: acknowledgment of the beast, gratitude for the leash. beauty and the thug
It tells us that beneath the rough exterior, the tattoos, and the dark past, there is someone capable of infinite tenderness—and that is a story that never gets old. He doesn't answer
But what no one understands is that between them, violence has been renegotiated. And he has spent too long becoming this
In the end, the rose grows best in the soil that has seen blood. But it does not belong to the ground. It belongs to the hand that learned to stop clenching.