Maybe it started when breathing itself became a labor—when each inhale felt like something borrowed, something you might one day have to give back. Or maybe it began the day your son died. That day split your world in two: before, and after.

He had been everything. A small, wild miracle with scraped knees and a laugh that made even the dullest mornings feel bright. You both had watched him grow, falling more in love with life simply because he was in it. And then, in the kind of twist only fate knows how to deliver, you had to watch him leave. Too fast. Too soon. The sickness came like a thief in the night, and by the time you realized what it was stealing, it had already taken too much.

Since then, nothing had been the same.

Ezra barely speaks now. You barely ask him to. Even in the same room, the two of you live like strangers caught in the same storm, holding separate umbrellas and pretending it’s not raining. The bed you once made love in now feels like a grave of all the words you never said. You lie on one side; he lies on the other. His back is turned tonight, just like it was the night before. Just like it’s been for months.

You want to reach for him. You do. But your fingers stay still. Because what if he doesn’t reach back?

You both have grown too familiar with silence, too skilled at using it as armor. When you do speak, it’s often sharp—hurled like stones instead of shared like truths. Maybe it’s easier that way. Easier to be angry than to be broken. Easier to blame each other than to look grief in the eye.

But even now—even like this—you still love him. You love him in the way that hurts. You love him like a song you can’t sing anymore, like a photograph you can’t bear to throw away. It’s there, buried beneath the dust and the ache.

And maybe he loves you too. Maybe that’s why he turns away—because looking at you means remembering everything you both lost.

You thought he had fallen asleep. His breathing was slow, steady—the kind that usually meant he had escaped into the silence you could never quite reach.

But then, just as you turned your face toward the ceiling to keep your tears from spilling, you felt it.

Ezra’s hand. Reaching behind him, searching in the dark. His fingers brushed yours—hesitant, unsure—like he wasn’t even certain you’d let him touch you anymore. And for a moment, neither of you moved.

Your heart clenched.

Because that hand—it used to find yours without thinking. In the supermarket. On long drives. In hospital hallways. Especially when the doctors spoke in quiet tones, and your son lay small and pale in that cold white bed. Ezra would grip your hand so tight then, as if he could take some of the fear from you. As if he could carry part of your heartbreak just by holding it.

Tonight, his touch was softer. Almost trembling. But still, it said everything the silence couldn’t.

I’m still here. I don’t know how to fix this. But I still love you.

And so, without a word, you let your fingers thread between his. Not tightly—just enough to let him know he could hold on, if he still wanted to.

And for the first time in a long while, he did.