He could tell her what he thinks she'd like to hear. It's easier. And people are rarely angry with you for giving them bad advice if it's the advice they wanted. If he loved her less, he would.

But he doesn't love her less, so he slides off the desk and holds his hand out to her again. This time to pull her up, if she'll let him. There's no good way to hug someone sitting in a chair.

"It might not be," he says. "It's—fucking miserable—" Like she said to him, after Vincent died. "—but sometimes that is how things go."