We slept in the same bed for ten years without ever touching each other. Everyone else thought our marriage was over, but the truth hurt more. Some wounds can be reopened with just a touch.

Yet that night, something felt different.

His breathing no longer sounded far away. She could sense it—not against her skin, but in her chest—as though the air itself carried an old message finally daring to return. They had spoken. Not much, but enough. Sometimes a single truth spoken in time weighs more than a thousand promises.

He slowly turned toward her. The mattress creaked—a small, nearly insignificant sound, yet to them it was thunder. For years, they had avoided that creak with careful precision. Turning meant approaching. Approaching meant remembering.

“Are you still awake?” he asked quietly, as though he feared waking not her, but the past.

“Yes,” she answered. “I always am.”