“Or you didn’t want to.”

She didn’t answer.

I made the couch into a bed. The blanket smelled of lavender. For a long time I lay awake under the glow of the streetlamp, and around midnight I heard Sophie crying — not loudly, not dramatically, only enough for someone listening carefully to hear.

Every instinct told me to go to her. But every lesson from our failure told me not to confuse my guilt with comfort she hadn’t asked for. So I stayed where I was.

And I listened.

In the morning she found me in the kitchen reading the medication schedule for the fourth time. Her hair was flattened on one side, making her look younger and more fragile than she’d have liked.