present tense

The answer was "no", and for some reason it made her feel like weeping. The reason she felt that way was not so much because immediately, the answer could be construed as betrayal, of the person he was supposed to mean to her. But rather she felt like weeping because "no" revealed something else to her. Of the failure on her part as well as his. The failure to remain as much as possible, the person that they would have spent their lives together being. The person he would have grown with, rather than apart from. It was too late, anyway. They were now very separate. And neither felt a strong urge to do anything about it simply because there was nothing to do about it. Time had passed and confirmed this.

She was just lying in bed and these were the thoughts that crossed her mind as she looked up into the ceiling with perfectly dry eyes.