Words can be twisted, explained away, taken back.

But that laugh was involuntary, and it was warm, and it belonged to a version of him I had not been given access to in years.

He had not stopped being tender.

He had simply stopped being tender with me, and rerouted all of it, every last drop, to a twenty-seven-year-old who whined at him through a screen.

I went back up the stairs without my water.

I did not sleep.