For my entire adult life, one fact had sat at the center of everything, unquestioned and load-bearing: that it was up to me.

That I was the one holding it together, that if I faltered, if I got sick or lost my job or made one wrong financial move, Chloe and I would fall, and there was no one underneath us to catch us.

That fact had shaped every decision I made, every risk I did not take, every indignity I swallowed.

And Arthur had just, in a single sentence, removed it.

It’s over, the part where you carry all of it alone.