I don’t sleep.
Not really.
The guest room bed is too neat, too polite. It smells like detergent and distance. I lie on my back staring at the ceiling fan, counting rotations, pretending my chest isn’t tight.
I can hear him moving around in the master bedroom. Drawers. A sigh. The mattress creaking when he sits, then lies down, then sits again.
Good.
Let him be restless too.
At some point, my phone lights up.
A message.
From him.
“Are you really sleeping in there?”
I stare at it for a long time. Long enough for the screen to dim.
Yes, I type.
Then delete it.
I put the phone face down and turn on my side.
I hate how much of me still wants him to come knock. To cross the hallway. To say something dumb and soft and wrong.
He doesn’t.
Morning comes quietly. No confrontation. No
