This is it, a start, a knot loosening. Given that Riley is the most contained person I’ve ever known, these delicate conversations—calm and kind—are how we can start to rebuild. It might not be such a bad thing after all; maybe we don’t need to rehash every miscommunication or slight in painful detail, or go backward to move forward. We can trust that we will eventually return to normal, that the strength of our shared history is enough to fall back on, to carry us through. I allow myself to feel hopeful that this is exactly what’s happening right now. And that after all of this, we could
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