Her friend noticed it over coffee, though nobody said his name at first. There was a faint lipstick mark on the rim of a glass from the night before, a new scent on her scarf, and a habit of pausing when her screen lit up from across the counter.

But the real tell was smaller. She had stopped rushing through stories about herself to ask what everybody else needed. When somebody mentioned a concert, she said she might go. When somebody joked about a weekend away, she said she had already looked at trains.

People call that selfish when women do it late. Her friend called it overdue. Later that evening, a message arrived with a simple question about Friday. This time she did not answer immediately, and nobody in the group chat tried to write it for her.