When I finally approached her, I didn’t come armed with justifications. I came with the admission that I had been careless with the person who had been careful with me for years. I described the ways I’d overlooked her effort, how I’d reduced her to a role instead of seeing her as a person. She didn’t rush to absolve me. She simply listened, exhausted. In that quiet, I understood: love without respect is just dependency dressed up as devotion. She hadn’t become distant; I had finally noticed the distance my neglect had created.
