They are not cruel. That is what makes it hard.

They remember your birthday. They cried at your grandmother's funeral. When people ask, you say things are fine, and in most of the ways people mean, they are.

But you have stopped mentioning the thing you are excited about, because they go quiet. You have got smaller at dinners. You have started editing yourself in the car on the way over.

Nobody tells you that a love can be real and still bad for you. We are taught that real is the test. It is not. The test is whether you can be all of yourself inside it, and if the answer has been no for a while, you are allowed to leave. Even though they are not a villain. Even though they will not understand.