I knew something was wrong the moment she walked into the bedroom without her usual preamble. No “hey,” no “do you have a second,” no “why is your shirt inside-out, again.” Just her standing in the doorway like a jury foreperson preparing to deliver the verdict.

“We need to talk,” she said.

If you ever want to watch a grown adult instantly experience every stage of grief at the same time, say those four words to them. My brain immediately started scrolling through every possible thing I might have done wrong in the last twenty-four hours, then the last week, and then-because panic is thorough-the last decade.

She crossed her arms. That’s when I knew we were going to be here a while.

I sat on the edge of the bed, trying to look calm while internally writing my own obituary. She walked in, surveyed the room, then fixed her eyes on the mattress like it held the secrets of the universe.

“We can’t keep doing this,” she said.

Fantastic. A sentence with no specifics. Love that. Really grounds a person.

I nodded slowly like I understood, even though I very much did not. “Okay,” I said, trying to sound supportive instead of terrified. “In what way?”

She let out this sigh. Not a dramatic sigh, not an angry sigh, but a disappointed one-the kind that suggests she’s been thinking about this for a while and has finally reached the emotional equivalent of hitting the low-battery warning.

“It’s been going on too long,” she said.

My mind tried to guess what “it” was. My snoring? My laundry pile? The fact that I reheated fish in the microwave last week and pretended the smell was “just the fridge being weird”? The list was endless.

She sat on the bed, tested the mattress with her hand, and shook her head the way someone does when a mechanic tells them the repairs are going to cost more than the car is worth.

“This isn’t sustainable,” she said quietly.

I didn’t know what “this” referred to, but I didn’t love hearing that something in my life wasn’t sustainable. That’s usually a phrase people use before changing careers or shaving their heads.

“Right,” I said. “I get that.”

I did not get that.

She looked at me with this searching expression, like she was waiting to see if I’d connect some obvious dots she’d been mentally connecting for days. Spoiler: I had no dots. My entire brain was a blank sheet of paper blowing across a parking lot.

“You don’t see it,” she said.

Deadly words. Absolutely deadly. Because now I had to pretend I saw something so obvious that she was borderline offended I didn’t.

“I… think I do,” I lied.

She gave me a look. The kind that says: You absolutely do not.

“We need to fix this,” she said, tapping the mattress once with her fingertips. “Before it becomes a bigger problem.”

The mattress. She kept looking at the mattress. Touching it. Frowning at it. Testing it. Somehow the mattress had become the third person in this conversation, and apparently it had sinned.

I swallowed. “Okay,” I said carefully. “Then tell me what you’re thinking.”

She hesitated. That hesitation hit harder than anything else so far. People hesitate before saying something big.

“This has to change,” she said.

“Right,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “What exactly has to change?”

She met my eyes, serious, almost gentle. “Everything that happens in this bed.”

That was not the sentence I wanted to hear. Not even a little.

I felt my heartbeat in my teeth.

“Okay…” I managed. “Anything in particular?”

She took a slow breath. “I’ll explain. But you have to let me get through the whole thing.”

I nodded, though I was ninety percent sure whatever she was about to reveal was going to rewrite my understanding of at least the last month of my life.

She glanced down at the mattress again, then back up at me.

“Just… promise you’ll listen,” she said.

“I will,” I said, bracing for impact.

“Good,” she replied.

And that’s where she left it. Hanging in the air. Heavy. Ominous. Absolutely nothing clarified.

I sat there, staring at her, wondering what in the world could possibly be wrong with our bed-and why it suddenly felt like the fate of the entire relationship depended on whatever she was about to tell me.

Continue reading (Chapter-2) » Obviously