I’m sorry it cost so much.

I am.

But I need you to understand whthe lesson truly was, because if you miss it, you’ll have paid all of that for nothing.”

He waited, and for once he did not fill the silence with excuses.

“You spent six years believing that love meant letting people walk across the person who built your foundation,” I said.

“You thought my love was a floor — something that would always be there under your feet, no matter how you treated it, so that you were free to spend your attention pleasing the people who might leave.

You had it backward.