A pause can give a person room to say what they were still deciding whether to share.

People arrive at difficult things sideways, and often only after testing whether it is safe. The important sentence usually sits behind a silence, waiting to see whether the conversation will move on without it, and most conversations do, because a gap feels like an invitation to fill. Holding still is a form of offering.

Let the next silence run a few seconds longer than is comfortable. Do not rescue it with a question or a story. If nothing comes, that is fine too, and the room was still made.