He steps closer. “I was wrong.”
“I know,” I say.
That’s the difference now. I don’t need him to bleed for it anymore. He understands it. He’s shown it.
“I didn’t know how to explain the mental load back then,” I admit. “I didn’t have the language. I just had resentment.”
He nods slowly. “And I didn’t know how to say I was scared without turning it into criticism.”
There it is.
Growth doesn’t sound cinematic. It sounds like that. I dry my hands and turn toward him fully.
“When the Milan email came in,” I say quietly, “my first instinct wasn’t excitement. It was guilt.”
“I know.”
“I thought if I stepped into something bigger, I’d destabilise everything we’d worked so hard to steady.”
He studies me. “But?”
“But you didn’t flinch.”
He smiles faintly. “I wanted you to go.”
“I know.”
And it’s not just that he said it. It’s that he meant it. He didn’t look threatened. Or inconvenienced. Or abandoned. He looked proud. That did something to me I didn’t expect. It made me braver.
I move past him into the living room and sink into the sofa. He follows automatically, sitting close enough that our thighs touch.
There was a time that closeness felt loaded. Charged with expectation. Now it feels like alignment.
“I think,” I say slowly, “the hardest part wasn’t losing desire.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“It was losing myself.”
The words sit between us.
“I loved being a mum,” I continue. “Still do. But somewhere in the middle of nappies and school forms and meal planning, I became functional instead of fulfilled.”
He doesn’t interrupt.
“I didn’t blame you for that,” I add. “Not really. But I did expect you to notice.”
He exhales slowly. “I didn’t.”
“I know.”
Silence.
Soft.
Safe.
“But you do now,” I say.
