She sat down and told me before I could ask how her week had gone. "I keep hearing the same thing. You're too much. I need space. It feels like you're always checking on me."

Different relationships. Different people. Same sentence, eventually.

I asked what she made of that. She didn't hesitate. "That something is wrong with me."

She'd been living inside that conclusion for years. Every unanswered text became evidence. Every quiet evening became a warning. And the harder she watched for the ending, the more tired the people around her got of being watched.

So I asked about the last time it happened. A text, three hours of silence, and everything she told herself while she waited.

Not what he did. What she believed.

She went quiet. Nobody had ever asked her about that part.