He had not been cruel.

That was almost the harder thing to sit with.

He had simply not looked, because looking would have cost him a comfort, and not-looking had cost him nothing that he was the one being made to pay.

Chapter 18 — I Told Him No

A month after the birthday, Derek sat down beside me at the kitchen table with a quiet, chastened look I had not seen on him before, and he told me he had talked to his father that day.

I set down my tablet and waited, because I had learned that month the power of waiting, of not rushing to fill a man’s silence with my own reassurance.