I had convinced myself I didn’t mind it.

And then a warm, attentive woman looked at me across that silence as though I were still worth looking at, and every defense I’d built over a lifetime simply did not apply, because they were defenses against being cheated, and this did not feel like being cheated.

It felt like being rescued.

That is the genius of it, and I say this now with a clarity that cost me nearly everything: predators like Rebecca do not attack your strengths.

They find the one soft unguarded place a proud man doesn’t even know he’s left open, and they move in there, gently, and set up house, and by the time you think to be suspicious you are already grateful to them, and gratitude is a very hard thing to investigate.