— Why didn’t you tell me?
It came out harsher than I meant it to.
Hurt has a way of borrowing the voice of accusation.
She looked at me, and what I saw in her face was not deceit.
It was exhaustion.
The kind that settles into a person only after weeks of carrying fear alone.
— Because you had just lost your job, she said.
— Because after your mother’s cancer, hospitals make you stop breathing.
Because you started taking sleeping pills just to get through the night.
Because every time I opened my mouth, I thought I was about to drop one more disaster on top of a man who was already drowning.
She swallowed hard and looked away.
— And because I kept thinking I would tell you tomorrow.
Tomorrow.
