Gwendolyn was not the point of least resistance.

Gwendolyn made noise, made scenes, made her displeasure expensive.

Marisol did not.

Marisol made her displeasure cheap, out of love, by responding to every violation with patience instead of protest — and so, with the logic of water finding the lowest ground, every conflict in that house flowed toward her, and pooled around her while she drowned in it while the woman who caused most of it stayed perfectly dry.

This is the terrible trap that lies in wait for the loving and the patient: that their very virtues, in the hands of a conflict-avoider, become the reason they are chosen to suffer.