Chapter 3
I lit another cigarette and watched the smoke curl up toward our bedroom ceiling. Marcus hadn't stirred in over an hour, his breathing deep and even. How long had it been since he'd touched me? Really touched me, not just the perfunctory kisses goodbye or the brief squeeze of my shoulder when he passed behind my chair at dinner.
Six months. Maybe longer.
It started during that brutal stretch when I was gunning for the department head position at the clinic. Eighteen-hour days became the norm. I was drowning in research papers, complex trauma cases, and administrative meetings that stretched past midnight. I'd come home exhausted, barely able to keep my eyes open long enough to brush my teeth.
Marcus would be waiting for me, sometimes with dinner still warm in the oven. He'd wrap his arms around me from behind while I stood at the kitchen sink, press his lips to my neck.
"Not tonight," I'd murmur, pulling away. "I'm dead on my feet. Maybe tomorrow?"
The first few times, he was understanding. "You've been working yourself to death, babe. Go get some sleep."
But the maybe-tomorrows kept turning into definitely-not-tonights.
I remember the night everything shifted. I'd pushed him away again, too tired to even pretend I was interested. Marcus had gone quiet for a long moment, then grabbed his jacket.
"Where are you going?"
"Out," he'd said, not looking back. The door slammed hard enough to rattle the picture frames on the wall.
I found him later at O'Malley's, the dive bar three blocks from our apartment. He was nursing a whiskey and staring at the TV like it held the secrets of the universe.
"I'm sorry," I'd said, sliding onto the stool next to him. "I know I've been distant. This job thing has me all twisted up."
He'd looked at me then, really looked at me, and I saw something I'd never seen before. Resignation, maybe. Or disappointment.
"Come home with me," I'd whispered, my hand finding his thigh. "Let me make it up to you."
We'd barely made it through our front door. Marcus was rougher than usual, almost aggressive in a way that should have excited me but instead left me feeling disconnected. I went through the motions, made the right sounds, but my mind kept drifting to the case files waiting on my desk.
When it was over, Marcus rolled away from me without his usual post-intimacy cuddling. That was the first night he didn't pull me against his chest before falling asleep.
"Everything okay?" I'd asked the next morning.
"Yeah," he'd said, already reaching for his phone. "Just tired."
But something had broken between us that night, something I couldn't quite identify at the time. Marcus became the one to fix things first, though. Before I could even figure out how to address the growing distance, he was back to his thoughtful self.
"It's not your fault," he'd told me over breakfast one morning. "I was being impatient. When things calm down at work, we'll take a vacation. Somewhere warm."
I'd believed him. Believed that our relationship could survive my ambition, that love would bridge the gap until I could give him the attention he deserved.
But the warmth never fully returned. He still brought me coffee in bed on Sunday mornings, still asked about my day and listened to my complaints about difficult patients. He was still Marcus, still the man I'd married. But he stopped reaching for me in the dark. Stopped suggesting weekend getaways or date nights.
We hadn't been intimate in six months. Not once.
And now he thought I was stale.
The word hit me like a physical blow every time I remembered it. Stale. Like bread left out too long. Like something that had lost its freshness, its appeal. My hand shook as I brought the cigarette to my lips, ash falling onto my wrist and burning the skin. The pain was sharp but brief, nothing compared to the ache in my chest.
My phone buzzed. Marcus, wondering where I was.
"Just stepped out for some air. Be up in a minute."
"Okay. Going to bed now."
Even our text exchanges had become transactional. When had we stopped saying "I love you" at the end of conversations?