The Charger I Move Every Night

He's asleep by ten most nights and I'm still up, standing in the hallway with his backpack open on the bench by the door. I've moved his charger from the nightstand into the front pocket before he wakes for four years now, since the second week we lived together, since the first time he called me from a dead phone at a gas station forty minutes from home.

Tonight I told myself I wasn't going to do it. Let the charger stay on the nightstand. Let him find out at nine with eleven percent and a long drive ahead of him. I wanted, just once, to see if he'd notice the four years instead of just receiving them.

I stood there a long time not moving. Then I looked down and my hand was already in the front pocket, charger coiled the way it always is, and I don't remember deciding to reach for it.

I zip the bag. I set it back by the door exactly where he'll grab it half asleep, the way he always does, the way that makes it look like nothing was ever there to notice.

I go back to bed and lie next to him and think about how the test I wanted to run was never really about him. I already know what he'd do with a dead phone. I don't know what I'd do with an unnoticed one.