“I always thought you were the stronger one,” Dorian said quietly.

Marisol almost smiled, because that single sentence captured the entire flaw in their marriage.

“Being stronger,” she said, “did not mean I deserved to receive less support from my husband.”

“I know that now.”

“Knowing it now doesn’t erase how long I had to live without you knowing it.” She had heard this before, in different words, from other people, her whole life — the quiet assumption that because she could carry more, she should; that strength was a kind of permission other people had to lean on her without limit.

It is one of the cruelest things done to capable people, and it is nearly always done with affection: the ones who can bear weight are handed more and more of it, precisely because they do not collapse, until the reward for being strong is to be left carrying everything alone.