She shifts so the crown of her head rests just under my chin. I kiss it without even thinking. Even in her sadness, touching her like this is automatic. As easy as breathing. And now that I’ve done it again, maybe it’s as necessary, too.

“What happened?” I risk asking quietly.

She sniffles and wipes her nose with the sleeve of her robe. I make a mental note to wash that later for her, too.

“I don’t know.” Her voice is hoarse. “I don’t usually… That’s not…” She lets out another gasping sob.

I squeeze her even tighter. “Hey. It’s okay. I’m here.”

She nods against my chest and wraps her arms around my torso. I rest my cheek against the still-wet crown of her head.

“The last time this happened,” she starts haltingly, “was the day after I quit writing.”

I hum, and she snuggles closer to me as if trying to chase the sound of it in my chest. “You had a good run, I guess.”

She huffs a wet laugh, wipes her nose again, and goes back to squeezing my middle.

“It makes sense, though,” I say. “You had a lot going on then. You’re going through a lot of change now, again. Sometimes you have to let it all out.”

Scarlett had held me like this once, on the anniversary of my father’s death. He died when I was in high school, but there have been so many times in my life when I have wished I could ask him one more thing. One more piece of advice. Whether or not I’m on the right track. If I’m good man. If I could be a good husband, a good father one day…

She had found me drowning my worries in a bottle of whiskey. I hate whiskey, but he loved it. I thought maybe one drink would make me feel closer to him, but the situation quickly devolved. Scarlett let herself into my condo after I hadn’t answered her calls, silently cleaned up my picked-over meal and the glass I had forgotten after I started drinking directly from the bottle. She pressed two ibuprofen into one palm and a glass of water into the other. When the glass clinked against my father’s ring, I lost it again. When the wave of sadness passed, she urged me to take the medicine and finish the water, then she wrapped me up in herself and a blanket and held me until morning.

“Sometimes you have to let it all out,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with missing your dad.”

I hadn’t even told her what was wrong. That’s how well she knew me—how in sync we were.