He noticed I was done and didn’t ask for more

Dear Delyara, Not a grand speech, not flowers, not some perfect response. Just the absence of one more demand. He looked at me in the kitchen and must have seen that I had reached that dull, brittle place where even a normal question would feel heavy. So he didn’t ask one. He just took the bins out, checked the back door, and told me to go upstairs if I wanted. I nearly cried over that. Because what I needed most last night was not extra love in a dramatic form. It was to stop being required for ten minutes without having to justify why.