Or so I believed.

I want to be honest that I believed it completely in that moment, that it did not once cross my mind to doubt it.

I thought I was about to hand half of this terror to the person who was supposed to carry it with me.

That is what a partner is for, or so I had always understood the arrangement.

Not to make the fear disappear, because no one can do that, but to divide it, to stand on the other side of it so that you are not holding the whole crushing weight of it alone.