NIKO.
The house had never felt this loud and this quiet at the same time.
For two days straight, Alex and I had argued more than we had spoken normally. It wasn't the explosive kind of arguments that left wreckage in their wake, but the slow, corrosive ones—the kind that seeped into everything and that turned small moments sharp.
The Christmas decorations that once made me smile now irritated me for reasons I couldn’t properly explain. I began to find faults in everything she did—in the way she organized activities for the kids, in the way she volunteered to help with rehearsals, in the way she laughed too freely with them, like nothing in the world weighed on her.
I found faults everywhere.
Alex hadn’t fought me, though, and that left me very unsettled. She had developed this calm, d
