I swallowed. Because she was right. Because I was tired. Because I didn’t want to be brave. I wanted to be held.
I left the café with my chest full of heavy thoughts and no real answers.
At home, the house was quiet in that evening lull. The kids were tucked away. The day’s chaos temporarily suspended. Danwas at the kitchen table, laptop open, face lit by the cold glow of the screen.
He looked up briefly. “Alright?”
“Yeah,” I lied.
“Yeah,” he said back, like it was a script we both knew.
I stood there for a moment, my bag strap tight in my hand.
Abigail’s words rang in my head. Reset. Reach. Try. I walked over slowly.
“Dan,” I said.
He glanced up again, wary now. Like he expected another fight. My throat tightened.
“What if we tried?” I said quietly.
He blinked. “Tried what?”
“Us,” I whispered. “Finding us again. Before… this becomes all we are.”
The silence that followed wasn’t the usual silence. Not the one made of avoidance. This one had weight. Possibility.
Dan stared at me like he didn’t know the right answer. And the terrifying thing was, neither did I. But I meant it. For the first time in a long time, I meant something without knowing if it would work.
“I don’t know how,” I added, honest. “I just… I don’t want to wake up one day and realise we let it slip away because we were too tired to fight for it.”
Dan’s jaw worked like he was swallowing down pride.
Then he nodded once.
“Okay,” he said, voice rougher than usual. “We try.”
My eyes burned. Not because everything was fixed. Because for a second, we were standing in the same place again. And I realised how badly I’d missed that.
CHAPTER TWELVE
DAN
I sat at the kitchen table, early morning light spilling softly through the window, and wondered if I’d ever be able to fix this.
The word divorce was still ringing in my ears as a stark reminder of where we are at.
I wasn’t sure when it started. Maybe it was the slow drift of daily routines, the endless cycles of work, parenting, and the constant hum of obligations. Somewhere along the way, Emma and I had shifted from being lovers to being something more akin to roommates, or even best friends. And as I sipped my coffee, I couldn’t help but question: Am I still in love with her, or have we simply become good friends who share a house?
I remember the days when every glance from Emma would send my heart racing. Back then, I could hardly take my eyes off her; the way her laugh filled a room, the sparkle in her eyes when she was excited, and even the way she’d scrunch up her nose when she was thinking. Now, those moments were few and far between. Lately, our interactions felt as though they were measured by convenience rather than passion.
I love her, don’t get me wrong, I do, but lately I’ve been asking myself if that love is enough, if it’s the same kind of love I used to feel, or if it’s morphed into something more platonic.
I stared at the sticky note on the counter that Emma had left this morning. “Don’t forget to take out the bins” and it struck me how even our attempts at communication had become so mundane.
We no longer exchanged the playful banter of our early years. Instead, our conversations were reduced to check-ins, reminders, and the occasional passive-aggressive jab about who left the wet clothes in the tumble dryer.
It wasn’t that I didn’t care about Emma. I did, with every part of me. I admired her resilience, her kindness, and the way she could light up even the darkest days with her presence. I remembered our first date like it was yesterday, a night filled with awkward yet endearing conversation, the excitement of discovering one another, and the thrill of feeling like anything was possible.
