Chapter 1

I can’t remember exactly which day Julian started sleeping with his back turned to me.

When we were dating, he always had to face me. He would wrap his arms tightly around my waist. Even when I complained about the heat and pushed him away, he would petulantly pull my pillow closer, whispering that it was the only way he felt safe.

But in the seventh year of our marriage, our single duvet split into two.

Two days ago, under the pretext that my snoring was keeping him awake, he suggested we sleep in separate rooms.

I didn’t believe him. I quietly downloaded a sleep tracker app. The next morning, I played back the recording. For eight solid hours, the bedroom was so quiet you could barely hear a breath.

There was no snoring.

There were only the sounds of him tossing and turning eleven times, and seventeen heavy, stifled sighs in the darkness.

I counted them, one by one, until a sudden chill washed over me. If someone still has even a shred of affection left for the person beside them, they don’t sigh seventeen times in a single night.

I didn’t confront him.

Until tonight, when I woke up with a start. He was still facing away from me, the faint glow of his phone screen reflecting off the wall.

At that moment, I realized with a dull ache that I didn’t even care enough to wonder what he was looking at, or who he was texting.

I calmly turned over, giving him my back as well. Then, in the silence of the night, I opened my Notes app and typed the only thing on my to-do list for tomorrow:

*Contact lawyer. Draft divorce papers.*

As it turned out, a marriage doesn't need a spectacular affair to die. A single sigh in the dark is more than enough.