Caleb’s tone changed after that.
Not overtly. Strategically.
You don’t owe anyone an explanation, he wrote.
People will twist your silence anyway.
I’m trying to protect you.
Protect.
Again.
But protection now came with instructions.
Where to sit.
When to arrive.
When to leave.
“People watch patterns,” he warned. “We don’t want to give them one.”
One night, staring at the ceiling beside my husband, I finally asked myself the question I’d been avoiding.
When did support become permission?
And worse.
When did permission become control?