Then my mom got sick, and after she died he went quiet in a way I didn’t know how to reach. I was a mess too, honestly. We were two people standing in the same fog who couldn’t find each other.

The blowup happened at Thanksgiving in 2022. His kitchen. I’d cooked the whole thing, because nobody else was going to. I was tired and raw and missing my mom, and I said something about how I felt like I’d lost both my parents instead of just one. I wanted him to say he was sorry. I wanted him to reach over and grab my hand. Instead he looked at the counter and said, “You always did make everything about you.”

That was it. That was the whole thing. Five seconds, maybe.

I put down the dish towel. “Then I won’t bother you anymore,” I said. He didn’t argue. That was the worst part of it. He just stared at the floor and let me say it. I drove home that night and waited for him to call and apologize, and he sat in that house waiting for me to call and apologize, and neither one of us ever did. Pride is a stupid, expensive thing. I know that now.

A month went by. Then six. Then a whole year. And the longer it went, the harder it got to be the one who broke first. I told myself he knew where I worked. He knew my number. The door was open if he wanted it. If he really wanted me, I figured, he could come find me.

Turns out he did. I just never knew which window to look out of.