Alexander didn't announce his decision.
That was how I knew it wasn't calculated.
He lingered in the living room long after evening settled, the television on but muted, the light casting shadows that made him look older, less certain. I could feel his attention stretching toward the hallway, toward me, as if proximity alone might still mean something.
I passed through once to retrieve a folder near the window. He looked up immediately.
"You're going to bed?" he asked.
"Yes."
His gaze lingered a fraction too long, tracking the line of my movement rather than the answer itself.
"I might stay up," he said.
"Of course."
The word landed cleanly, but something tightened behind my ribs. Not longing, recognition. Of how easily this moment could tip if either of us let it.
I didn't.
In the bedroom, I moved carefully, aware of how habit invited collapse. I changed slowly, folded my clothes with unnecessary precision, then sat on the edge of the bed longer than required.
The space beside me waited.
That was the problem.
I lay down and turned off the light.
Sleep didn't come immediately. I could feel him awake somewhere else in the house, the way one feels weather shifting, indirect, but unmistakable. The quiet held weight, not absence.
Sometime later, footsteps approached the bedroom.
They stopped just outside the door.
I felt it instinctively, his hesitation, his breath measured too carefully. If he opened the door, if he crossed that threshold, I knew exactly how it would go.
He wouldn't touch me at first.
He'd lie beside me, close enough to feel.
We would pretend sleep while listening to each other breathe.
And eventually, restraint would fail one of us.
My fingers curled into the sheets.
The handle didn't turn.
The footsteps retreated.
A door opened and closed at the end of the hall.
The sound settled into my chest, sharp and intimate. Not relief. Not disappointment.
Something worse.
Want, denied on purpose.
I slept eventually, but lightly, waking once with the irrational sense that he'd changed his mind, that he'd be there after all. The space beside me remained empty.
Deliberately so.
Morning came too soon.
I woke before the alarm, tension coiled low in my body. The bed beside me was untouched. I stared at it longer than necessary before standing, steadying myself with routine.
In the kitchen, Alexander appeared already dressed, hair immaculate, composure locked into place. He looked at me as if checking something, damage, distance, permission.
"Morning," he said.
"Morning."
He poured coffee and didn't drink it.
"I took the guest room," he said.
"I know."
Something flickered across his face relief threaded with something else. Disappointment, perhaps. Or hope.
"I didn't want to disturb you," he added.
I met his eyes. For a moment, the air tightened.
"I wasn't disturbed," I said.
It wasn't a rejection.
That was what unsettled him.
We moved around each other carefully, close enough that our shoulders nearly brushed more than once. Each near-contact felt intentional, loaded. Neither of us acknowledged it.
He left early.
That evening, he returned late.
When he saw me in the living room, legs tucked beneath me, book forgotten in my lap, he paused. His gaze softened before he caught himself.
"You slept well?" he asked.
"Well enough."
He nodded. "Good."
Silence stretched, charged, unfinished. He looked like a man fighting the impulse to cross a line he wasn't sure still existed.
"I'll be in the guest room again," he said.
I closed my book. "That's your decision."
The phrasing held. Choice, not permission.
He hesitated, eyes flicking to my mouth, then away. "Good night, Seraphina."
"Good night."
Later, alone in the bedroom, I lay awake longer than I wanted to. I was acutely aware of him somewhere else in the house of how easily I could end this distance with a single word.
I didn't.
Not because I didn't want him there.
Because wanting him was the most dangerous thing between us.
The first night he slept alone wasn't punishment.
It was recognition.
Of a desire neither of us could afford to indulge.
Of a silence thick with what remained unsaid.
Of a marriage where proximity still carried heat but no longer safety.
The space beside me remained empty.
Not peacefully.
Deliberately.
And I lay there, holding myself still, knowing exactly how much effort it took not to call his name.
This wasn't freedom.
It was restraint.
And restraint, I was learning, hurt in ways closeness never had.