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.

There were no accusations. They had already named the pain: the son they lost, the guilt unevenly carried, the grief endured alone while lying side by side. The silent promise they had made in that hospital dawn—“I won’t hurt you”—had, without meaning to, hardened into permanent distance.

He extended his hand… and stopped midway. Old habit. Old fear.

“If you don’t want to…” he began.

But she had already taken a step she had never allowed herself before. She moved a few inches closer. Not touching yet, but narrowing the abyss.

“I’m afraid,” she said. “But I’m tired of sleeping with him.”

He understood. Not “him” as husband, but “him” as pain, as the memory that slipped between them every night.

And then, for the first time in many years, their fingers touched.