You built scaffolds of patience around my distractions. I called it friendship. You called it work. Now I call it a debt I can’t repay except by staying awake the way you always did.

So here— my attention, finally. Not to fix. Not to earn absolution. Just to say: You were right. About the thing. About me. About the weight of showing up.

Sorry, Karl. Not for the small things—the missed calls, the half-listened theories, the night I laughed too late at something you meant with your whole throat. But for the larger silence: the one where I should have said I see you and instead said I’m fine .