She almost stops walking for a moment, opening her mouth to respond, then thinking the better of it. Casually, she tries to avoid his eyes as she reformulates an answer.

"It's not that I don't want to, but..." A pause. Her ears pitch low. "You and I should probably-- ease off a bit, yeah? You have someone now who'll be there for you for the long term, when Felih and I can't. And the deeper you go with someone, the more it hurts to part... so I just thought maybe we should take that into account now before something bad happens."

It's not jealousy, she thinks -- else she'd be eating out of his hand at that kind of offer, for anything he was willing to give. But this is going to require both of them drifting apart... and it's then that she realizes how much like a breakup it must sound to him.

"I don't mean for this to sound bad, it's just..." Another pause as she bites her lip and loses the means to continue. Just what? It sounds bad because it probably is, but what else can she do? She's the one with nothing to lose, not him.