For three years, nobody had seen Marcus cry. Not at his father's funeral. Not after the accident. Not even during the divorce, when everyone expected him to fall apart. He had learned early that feelings were inconvenient — a lesson reinforced by every difficult season of his life. So instead of processing them, he simply shut down. He became very good at it: a kind of internal switch that cut the connection between what he felt and what he showed. His colleagues called him calm. His family called him strong. His ex-wife called him unreachable. It was his daughter, aged nine, who finally got through. She climbed onto his lap one evening after school and said, very seriously, "Daddy, you never look sad. Don't you feel sad sometimes?" He did. He just didn't know how to stop shutting down.

For three years, Priya had been telling everyone she was fine. She said it so consistently, and with such conviction, that she almost believed it herself. Fine at work. Fine at family dinners. Fine, fine, fine — a word she had polished into a shield. Her friend Lucia saw through it immediately. But she didn't push. She simply stayed close and waited. Then one Tuesday, without planning to, Priya opened up. It started small — an admission that she was tired. Then tired became exhausted. Exhausted became scared. And scared became the whole truth, all at once, unstoppable. When it passed, Priya felt hollowed out and lighter at the same time — like a room that had been opened after years of being sealed shut. "Thank you for waiting," she said. "I wasn't waiting," Lucia said. "I was just here."