Her quiet used to make people assume there was nothing happening. Then the timing changes.

She reads the message, leaves it unread a little longer than necessary, then sends back one line. No paragraph. No extra emoji to soften it. Just enough to make him stare at the phone again.

In person, she is worse. He says something brave, maybe too brave, and she does not rescue him from it. She takes a sip. Looks away. Lets him wonder if he crossed a line or found one. By the time she changes the subject, he is still standing in the sentence she left behind.