Prologue
She couldn’t recall when it became a routine. Maybe it was the night after childbirth. It was never marked by an event, just a slow acquiescence. But now, it’s a cinch.
Midnight strikes like a dull bell in her spine. The baby rustles in his cot in a world of innocence. The glass kisses the marble beside her bed with a familiar clink. And the mattress sinks with practiced weight.
He doesn’t ask. Consent, once a dance, is now a silent contract written in the dust of their marriage bed.
A warm palm slides up the curve of her thigh. Calloused hands find their way to her sides, over the swell of her hips, and up to where her skin tightens under the press of his fingers. Her body remembers what her heart has forgotten. It responds loyally, almost shamefully. A servant who can’t forget its master’s whistle.
He is sculpted. Soap-slick and steel-strong. A man who belongs on a perfume billboard with rain sliding down his jaw. Honey-gold eyes. A blade-sharp jawline. His smile once melted her into sleep. There is something about him that makes even judgmental aunties at kitty parties blush at their wine glasses. The kind of man they call her “lucky woman” behind their half-jealous giggles.
But she knows better. He is desire without depth. A heat without fire. A performance without a presence.
She used to adore the way he tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. The way he said her name like a secret. The way they once made love as if tracing each other into existence.
Now, his hips grind into her like time into a weary wall. His lips roam but don’t linger. His eyes don’t seek hers anymore. They close too quickly, maybe so he doesn’t have to see what he’s lost.
She doesn’t moan. She exhales. Her sound bears more resignation than release. He mistakes it for pleasure. She lies there, tasting her own detachment, as he reaches his crescendo with a groan that feels like punctuation.
She, however, stares at the ceiling, tracing cracks that look like old alphabets. Maybe they spell something. Maybe they’re a map. Maybe they lead back to him.
He had a smile like moonlight on black water. She is still missing his fingers; they never needed to touch her to make her skin ache. His voice didn’t command but coaxed her soul out of hiding.
He was something else. Something unspeakable. Something... real.
She had named him once. It swirled on her tongue like rain on flame. But now, she hasn’t seen him in years.
He used to visit her like a secret lover slipping in through the window of her mind. Now, everything’s empty. She reaches for him every night and touches air.
Even in sleep, she is alone. Her body cools beside a man who thinks she is his. But her soul pines for someone who never needed to speak to be understood.
And tonight, like many before, she turns away from the man beside her, eyes wide open in the dark. Not waiting for sleep, but for him. Even if he never returns. Even if he was never truly real.
But deep down, in the hollow space where her heart used to bloom, she still believes… one night, he will return. Somewhere, somehow, the thread will tug again.
And perhaps... the sleepless will wake.
