Friends grew distant, though she could never quite name when that started. Invitations slipped past them because Damien was “tired from work,” or “needed a quiet night in,” and it felt unkind to insist. When she did go alone, he would later ask why she’d left him when he’d “needed” her.
There were still good days, and that made everything blurrier. Mornings when he brought her coffee just the way she liked it, evenings when he laughed at her stories and touched her wrist as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Those moments stitched over the doubts, for a while.