Chapter 12 — The Space Between

I woke up with the feeling that something is wrong right before I could open my eyes to start my day.

The morning feels wrong.

The atmosphere in the apartment is a bit still, heavy, as if something big and invisible has shifted overnight.

As I stepped my foot into the kitchen, the coffee pot is already empty leaving a little at the bottom showing signs that she was here. From the trace of things she has been awake for a while. Her mug sits in the sink, a faint trace of lipstick at the rim. I stare at it longer than I should.

She leaves for work earlier even before I do this days. There is something that screams final about the way the door closes behind her. No hesitation, no glance back or side eye.

In the car while heading out to start the work for the day, my assistant goes through the schedule for the day. I nod when appropriate, but my mind drifts from what he was saying.

I will replay our conversation from last night over and over again feeling the weight of everything. She had smiled once, briefly, it seemed right after a short while, when I told her I liked her new design proposal. Then she disappeared into her room and stayed in door all day with out stepping out again.

It is very strange how the smallest changes makes me unsettle now. The pauses. The polite distance that was once convenient feels like a outburst of war.

By the time we got to the office, I am already behind on the morning’s meetings. Numbers and reports kept popping up and filled the next hours, but none of it stays in my head.

At noon, I picked up my phone and called her without thinking. It rings twice before going to voicemail. I did not leave a message.

The day stretches for long and colorless. I go through the day with different emotions, motions meetings, calls, a lunch I barely taste.

Every voice I hear feels distant, filtered through static.

I keep wondering when exactly her silence stopped feeling peaceful and comfortable.

In the late afternoon, I stopped by the design department under the excuse of checking progress on a project which is too early for. Her name is there, on a digital mock up of an exhibition plan clean lines, subtle colors, unmistakable restraint.

I trace the edge of the printout with my thumb. It feels like touching something she built just to keep me out.

By evening, I have gone through three different strategy calls, two arguments, and one headache that refuses to fade. When I finally get home, the lights in the apartment are dim.

She is in the kitchen, standing by the counter with her laptop open. Her hair is tied loosely, a strand falling against her cheek.

“Long day?” she asks, not looking up.

“Yes.”

She nods. “There is dinner on the gas cooker.”

“You cooked?”

“Maya sent something over. I just heated it up.”

So even the food is borrowed comfort.

“Thank you,” I say.

She closes the laptop. “I have to finish some work for tomorrow. I might work a bit late.”

Her voice is calm, professional. As if we are two polite strangers sharing the same space.

“Lia.”

She pauses.

“Did something happen?”

Her eyes meet mine for a second before she looked away. “No. Nothing happened.”

“Then why does it feel like everything did?”

The question hangs there, too honest to take back. She looks down, fingers tightening around the edge of the counter.

“Maybe you are imagining it.”

“I am not.”

She takes a slow breath. “Then maybe it is just me. Maybe I am tired.”

That is a lie, and we both know it. But I let it stand.

I sat at the dining table later, pretending to eat. The food has gone lukewarm. She has gone uncomfortably quiet again, typing something fast in the other room.

The sound of her keyboard drifts through the open doorway, a steady rhythm that fills the empty air.

It is strange how quickly comfort can turn into distance or isolation.

It was not long ago that she would sit across from me, correcting my notes with a small, careless smile, accusing me of overcomplicating everything.

Now we can barely manage small talk or sit together for long.

Maybe that is what happens when something breaks twice the pieces fit differently the second time, sharper around the edges.

Later, I find myself in the study, lights off, city humming outside the windows.

I sit in the dark for a long time, the silence pressing against my chest.

It is not just about her voice or her eyes or the way she used to look at me when she thought I was not paying attention. It is about the quiet she leaves behind now.

The absence that keeps finding shape.

I should ask her directly. I should tell her what I want to say that I did not mean whatever she thought she heard, that I would never reduce her to a contract she is more than a contract to me.

But the words feel dangerous. Once spoken, they cannot be taken back and I don’t want to be in a difficult situation.

And I have already lost her once.

The hours went by fast. The city outside starts to sleep.

At some point, I hear her moving the soft sound of her bare feet, the faint click of a door closing.

I almost go to her then, almost say something simple like talk to me. But I stopped myself. Pride can sound a lot like restraint when you disguise it well enough.

I opened my laptop instead and searched up for old photos by accident a company event years ago, before everything fell apart.

She is in one of them, standing slightly behind me, laughing at something someone said off-camera, she looked young happy and relaxed not like now.

I look at that image longer than I should.

She looks free.

That is what I remember the most.

When I finally step into the hallway, the lights from her room spill faintly onto the floor.

I knock once. No answer.

Through the thin door, I hear soft music playing something low and slow, like a heartbeat turned down.

I stand there a moment longer, then walk away from the door.

The hallway feels colder as I leave.

The silence is almost a presence now patient, waiting, endless.

I stop by the window again. The city spreads out below like an electrical storm barely contained.

Every light out there belongs to someone living through their own kind of silence.

You can share walls, air, mornings, and still feel like you are miles apart.

The space between us used to be comfortable. Now it feels like a wound.

Sleep will not come. I end up on the couch, still in my shirt, listening to the hum of the refrigerator and the soft rain beginning against the glass.

It sounds like the world whispering just out of reach.

I close my eyes and picture her as she was that first week back here wary, angry, and still bright enough to fill the entire apartment.

Now she walks around like she is trying not to touch anything that might break.

And maybe that includes me.

When I finally drift toward sleep, I hear the faintest sound from her room the hinge of a door, the creak of a floorboard.

For a heartbeat, I think she might come into the room.

But the sound fades.

Only the rain stays.