The bedroom was quiet, but not the kind of quiet that soothed you.

It was the brittle, bruised kind. The kind that settled in after too many years of things swallowed back, of fights half-finished, of resentments packed tight under the floorboards like dynamite.

I sat at the vanity, smoothing the front of my dress like it might suddenly become beautiful if I just willed it hard enough. It was modest — Daniel’s word — and plain — his mother’s approval stamped into the neckline and hemline.

I looked at my reflection, at the hollow version of the woman I used to be, and tried not to flinch.

Behind me, the door opened with a soft click. Daniel walked in, still adjusting his cufflinks, his phone in his other hand. Without looking at me, he tossed it onto the dresser. It hit the wood with a loud clatter that made me flinch harder than I wanted him to see.

I watched him in the mirror. His tie was crooked, hair still damp from the shower. He still looked good…frustratingly, unfairly good. Like nothing inside him had rotted at all.

That was the part that hurt the most.

He was still the boy I fell in love with if you didn’t look too close.

“I used to design buildings,” I said, my voice barely louder than the hum of the overhead light.

He paused in front of the dresser, hands working mechanically at his cuff. His mouth tightened, but he said nothing.

“I had projects in Lisbon,” I went on, smoothing the hem of my skirt because if I didn’t, I might snap in half. “A boutique hotel in Chile. They flew me out first class. They called me brilliant. Once.”

He sighed and shrugged off his jacket, tossing it onto the chair without bothering to smooth it.

“I gave that up,” I said, the words getting heavier in my throat. “For us. For this marriage. Because you said it would be better if I stayed home. That it would help… trying.”

Still nothing.

He undid the buttons at his wrist, rolling up his sleeves like we were just having a casual night, like I wasn’t sitting there unraveling.

“I thought we were a team,” I said, twisting in my seat to look at him directly.

“We tried,” he said, flat, like he was reciting it from a script he’d rehearsed a thousand times in his head. “Didn’t work.”

My heart cracked like glass.

“You mean I didn’t work,” I said, voice trembling despite every wall I had built.

He glanced up then, eyes cold and blank like the Daniel who had loved me, really loved me, was someone he’d buried a long time ago.

“That’s not what I said,” he muttered.

“No,” I whispered, standing, feeling the dress whisper around my ankles like silk rain. “But it’s what you meant.”

He looked away, back to the dresser, back to his own reflection maybe, but he didn’t argue.

And wasn’t that answer enough?

I stood there a moment longer, watching the careful set of his shoulders, the way his hands fidgeted with his watch like it was more important than this conversation. Than me.

“I loved you, Daniel,” I said quietly. “I loved you when we lived in that shoebox apartment with the broken heater and you used to study until three in the morning and leave your coffee mugs everywhere. I loved you when you couldn’t afford takeout and bought me gas station flowers. I loved you when we thought we were going to build something together.”

He didn’t say anything. His jaw was tight enough to splinter.

“I don’t know who you are anymore,” I said, my throat burning. “But maybe that’s my fault. Maybe I spent too long trying to be what you wanted instead of who I was.”

Still no answer.

I waited because part of me still stupidly thought he might crack…that might reach for me, might apologize, might see me.

He didn’t.

He stood there like a stranger wearing Daniel’s face.

After a long, unbearable silence, he finally spoke, voice low and strained.

“Just… prepare yourself,” he said.

I frowned. “For what?”

He just turned and walked into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him with a soft, deliberate click.

I stood alone in the bedroom, the hum of the light above me buzzing louder now, my hands clutching at the silk of the dress like maybe if I held tight enough, I could keep the pieces of myself from flying apart.