For eight months I had let him believe I agreed.

I had told myself that the private sweetness was the real him and the public cowardice was a phase.

Standing there dripping, I understood at last that they were the same man, and that the private version had only ever been the one he could afford.

I had defended him to myself for so long that dismantling the defense took only a second once I finally let it.

Because here is the thing about the men who are gentle in private and absent in public: the private gentleness is not a truer self struggling to get out.

It is a discount.