I returned home with his scent still faint on my jacket.
I hated that I noticed it.
I hated that I did not want it to fade.
Thomas was in the garage when I arrived. I could hear tools clinking against metal. The sharp smell of oil and dust met me before he did.
“You’re back,” he called out without looking at me.
“Yes.”
No questions this time.
No curiosity.
Just distance.
Inside the house, everything felt unchanged. The same couch. The same television remote slightly cracked at the corner. The same faint stain on the hallway carpet.
But I felt like I was walking through someone else’s life.
That night at dinner, Thomas barely spoke.
Halfway through the meal, he put his fork down.
“Are you leaving me?”
The directness of it made my chest tighten.
“I have not decided anything.”
