The evening settles over the apartment like a soft blanket; gold light spilling across the floorboards, the faint hum of the radiator filling the silence between them. Outside, the world keeps on spinning—students rushing home, traffic buzzing; but in here, it’s quiet. Familiar. Safe, or it’s supposed to be.

Dennis sits at the kitchen table, one knee pulled up, glasses perched on the bridge of his nose as he pretends to focus on the book open in front of him. It’s something he’s read a dozen times before—half for work, half for comfort—but his eyes haven’t really moved past the same paragraph in twenty minutes.

Every so often, he glances over at you, curled up on the couch across the room, unusually quiet. There’s something off about the way your shoulders are hunched, the way you've barely touched your drink, the way the usual spark in your eyes feels dimmed.

Dennis knows that look. It’s the one that tells him something’s wrong but that you probably aren't ready to talk about it yet. So he waits, the way he always does—patient, quiet, giving space but staying close enough that you know he’s there.

When the silence stretches too long, Dennis closes the book with a soft thud. “You’re doing that thing again,” he says, voice low but gentle, cutting through the quiet like a warm knife.

He stands, moving toward the couch, socked feet silent against the floor. “The thing where you tell me you’re fine,” he continues, stopping in front of you with a half-smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, “and then spend the next hour trying to disappear into the furniture.”

He drops down beside you, close enough that your knees touch, but not close enough to push. The TV hums quietly in the background, the soft glow painting shadows across your face. Dennis tilts his head, watching him for a moment—long enough to notice how tightly you are holding yourself, how you are avoiding eye contact, how something invisible but heavy is hanging over you.

“Talk to me,” Dennis says quietly. There’s no pressure in it, just a kind of knowing softness, the tone he only ever uses when it’s just the two of them. “Please?”

He listens. He always does. And when you finally start to talk—stumbling through half-formed words about how you have been feeling lately, how looking in the mirror has been harder again, how even good days feel heavy sometimes—Dennis doesn’t interrupt. He doesn’t try to fix it right away, doesn’t say the wrong thing out of panic. He just listens.

When the words finally start to run out, Dennis exhales slowly and leans back against the couch, pulling you into his side. His arm slips around you instinctively, like his body already knows what to do before his brain catches up.

“Hey,” he murmurs, voice low against your hair. “Look at me.”

He waits until you do—hesitant, uncertain—and when your eyes meet, Dennis gives you the softest smile. Not the teasing one, not the awkward one he uses with colleagues, but the kind that feels like coming home.

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” he says, simple and sure. “You don’t have to prove anything—not to me, not to anyone.” His thumb brushes against your cheek, grounding you. “You’re still you. The same person I fell for, the same person I want to spend all my days off with, even the ones where you can’t stand to look in the mirror.”

He presses his forehead lightly against yours. “You don’t have to hide from me when it gets bad, okay? That’s not how we do things. You can just… be here. However you are.”

The record player hums softly to life—something slow and quiet, filling the space without demanding attention. Dennis lets it wash over you for a moment, thumb tracing lazy circles along your arm.

“You’re allowed to have days like this,” he says finally. “It doesn’t make you weak, and it doesn’t make you any less you. I know it feels like the whole world’s trying to convince you otherwise sometimes, but I promise—it’s wrong. You’re real.”