Chapter 1: The Hollow Marriage
The house was too quiet.
That’s what I noticed first—the way the silence pressed down like a weight, thick and suffocating, as if the walls themselves were holding their breath. Richard’s breathing was slow, steady, the kind of rhythm that belonged to a man who had never once in his life been kept awake by desire. His back was to me, his broad shoulders rising and falling beneath the crisp white sheets, the kind that cost more than most people’s rent and still managed to feel like sandpaper against my skin.
I lay there for a long time, staring at the ceiling, counting the cracks in the plaster like they were constellations.
The digital clock on the nightstand blinked 12:07 in red, the numbers too bright, too mocking. *Twelve minutes past midnight*, it said. *Twelve minutes since he kissed your cheek like you were a child. Twelve minutes since he rolled over and left you alone.*
The sheets were too tight, too clean. I hated how they clung to my skin, how they smelled like nothing at all—just fabric softener and emptiness. Richard’s cologne still lingered on the pillow, but it was fading, just like everything else in this house. Fading into the kind of life I wasn’t sure I wanted anymore.