The Nights Nobody Comes Home
the apartment's empty for three nights and i caught myself hoping it'd be longer.
He's gone till Thursday. Work thing, his sister's, doesn't matter. The apartment's mine for three nights and I've been counting them like good ones.
I ate cereal standing over the sink an hour ago because I could, because nobody was going to walk in and ask if that's dinner. I left the bowl there. The TV's been off all night. I've just been moving room to room with the lights low, doing nothing, and it's the best I've felt in a week.
That's the thing I wouldn't say with the lights on. It's not that anything's wrong with him. It's that something in me unclenches the second the door closes behind someone, and I've started looking forward to it.
He texted goodnight an hour ago. I left it on read for a while. Not to be cold. Just to keep the quiet a little longer before I let him back in, even by phone.
Did this one stay with you?
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