Teresa did not need me to be nice to her; I had always been nice to her.

She needed me to see what was happening to her, and to make it safe for her to tell me, and in those two things, the two that actually mattered, I had failed her for months.

I do not intend to make that particular mistake again.

Chapter 17 — The Small Things That Weren’t

And now, far too late, all the small things arranged themselves into a line, and I could see the pattern I had been refusing to see for weeks.

It had not been one dramatic accusation.