She told him about the night six years ago, the one she had never told anybody, and her voice was steady but something in her throat was not. He didn't do the thing people do — the reframe, the there-there, the quick comfort — he just kept his eyes on her face and nodded, once, when the hard part landed. When she finished she was quiet for a moment. And then something in her released that she hadn't known was holding. Not because he had fixed anything. Because somebody else now knew the shape, and she wasn't carrying it by herself anymore. The loop that had been open for six years, closed, just from that.