When Julian first told me about the offer, it had sounded like a distant storm cloud. I had heard the words, felt the shift in the air around us, but I had not yet felt the rain on my skin. In the days that followed, the reality settled in slowly, threading itself into our conversations, shaping the silences between us. It was never spoken as a threat or a demand. It was simply there, a truth that could not be ignored, and we met it together.

We did not argue about it. That surprised me most. ...