Her accusations hit him like a slap of cold wind to the face. Sure, he'd been trying to piss her off, but he wasn't expecting her to see right through his bullshit and drag his sorry carcass out into the light, and shit, part of him is goddamn impressed with her for doing it. She's not wrong, either — he made his choices, and they're here now.

Be better, she says, and it's every fight he and Maria ever had all over again, him building up his armor and her tearing it down with ruthless precision. It's the small, stubborn look Lisa used to give him when he told her, Not tonight. It's Karen Page standing out in the cold screaming, You do this and I am done, and he feels it, and he wavers. Maybe the way his heart is crumpling now is no more than an echo of the kind of hurt Maria used to inflict on him, but he feels it, and even that much makes his bones ache for the memory of the rest. Of all things he's lost, this is the one that keeps coming back to taunt him, like he could ever feel that much again for anybody anyway (couldn't he? doesn't he right now?) — like he deserves anything more from life than following his family and their killers into an early grave. 

"I don't want to be better, Veronica," he manages, shaking his head. All the fight's draining from his tone; he just sounds tired, hollow and heavy with it. "That's not where this road ends."

But.

He made his choices, and she can make hers.

"You want me to stay, knowing that, I'll stay."