“No.”
She nodded once, eyes on the yard where my girls were running.
“Good.”
I sipped my coffee.
Then I asked, “Do you?”
She turned to me.
“Do I wish you had?”
“Yeah.”
Her eyes widened.
“Absolutely not.”
“I don’t mean because of what happened after. I mean just… in that moment.”
She took a long breath.
Then she said quietly, “Sebastian, when your body starts to fail in public, something humiliating happens before the fear even sets in. You realize how easily people can choose not to see you.”
That landed hard.
She went on.
“I was dressed for work. I had a schedule. Calls to make. People waiting on me. And none of that mattered once I became inconvenient. Vulnerable. Alone. If you had kept driving, I think I would have felt that before I felt anything else.”
I looked down into my cup.
She touched my arm.
