She woke at five-thirty on a Friday morning.
Not the anxious early waking of someone with something wrong — the other kind. The specific early alertness of someone who has something they have been carrying quietly and have decided that today is the day to stop carrying it quietly.
She lay in the dark for a moment. Listened to the building — the specific nocturnal sounds of a structure she knew completely by now, every settling and ambient noise categorized and understood. Luca breathing beside her, the slow rhythm of genuine sleep.
She had known for three weeks.
She had not said anything for three weeks because she wanted to be sure — had wanted the certainty to be complete before she said the words, because some words, once said, changed the shape of everything and deserved to be said
