Chapter 9
Dana poured herself more wine like she intended to stay long enough to cause permanent structural damage.
“She doesn’t do apologies in words,” Dana said. “She also doesn’t ask for help unless she’s been silently struggling for at least an hour first. She cooks for people when she doesn’t know how to say thank you, and she will never, under any circumstances, be the first one to bring up a problem. You have to notice it yourself.”
The silence that followed was heavily armed.
Chloe stared into her wine glass like she was trying to disappear into it.
“Dana,” she said.
“I’m being helpful.”
“Stop being helpful.”
Dana ignored her and leaned back. “Also, she talks about you more than she’s admitted to me. Just so you know.”
She said it quietly, later, when Chloe was in the bathroom, like she was passing classified information.
Then Chloe came back, and Dana switched topics so smoothly it was honestly impressive.
The next morning, I woke up with a plan.
Not a dramatic plan. Not a grand gesture.
Real life doesn’t work like that.
Real things change through small moments that get slightly more intentional over time until one day you look up and the distance isn’t there anymore.
So I started with practical things.
The bathroom door lock, for one.
I had lived with that broken lock for months because it didn’t bother me. But after the shower incident, Chloe had started hanging a hand towel over the handle as a makeshift occupied sign, which worked maybe sixty percent of the time.
I looked up the replacement part, ordered it, and spent forty minutes on a Sunday fixing the lock while she was out.
Then I left the new key on the kitchen counter with a sticky note.
Bathroom locks now. One key each.
When she got home, she didn’t say anything. She tested the lock three times, made two mugs of tea without being asked, set one in front of me, and went back to her room.
I understood her language now.
The sparking power strip in the hallway was next. She had started walking around it with visible tension after noticing it one night.
I replaced it too.
She came home, stopped in the hallway, looked at the new one, then looked at me across the apartment.
She still didn’t say anything.
But at dinner, she pushed the last of the noodles onto my plate without asking.
Again, I understood.
I started filling the kettle with fresh water before she got home so she wouldn’t have to wait.
She started leaving the bathroom light on at night because she had noticed I worked late and walked past in the dark.
Neither of us pointed any of it out.
We were learning each other’s language.
The one we both spoke without words.
Whether it was leading anywhere, I honestly didn’t know.
But late at night, when the apartment was quiet and there was nothing left to distract me, I admitted the truth to myself.
I wanted it to.