Watching them together, I felt the small defensive knot in my chest begin to loosen.

Matthew was a project manager for a construction company, organized down to the last detail.

If a cabinet hinge squeaked, he fixed it.

If I mentioned that an appointment had slipped my mind, he added it to a shared calendar.

He was dependable in ways I’d stopped expecting adults to be.

After years of doing everything myself, that dependability felt like rest.