—Damon—
I couldn't sleep all night. Maybe it was that stupid argument about love that kept my blood hot. She lies beside me now, quiet and fragile—my wife—while the part of me that's supposed to rest grinds like an engine with no off switch. Her head still aches. She's refused stronger painkillers because of the baby, stubbornness, and a little martyrdom. Paracetamol is all she allows, a scrap of relief that barely touches the edges of it.
I watched her breathe, shallow, steady, as if sleep could stitch up the places that are torn inside me. How can she tell me not to love her and then sleep like nothing happened? How do her words have the cruelty of a knife and the softness of a lullaby at once? She is killing me softly, and I would let her—again, and again.
