I noticed the phone first.
It was face down on the bed, charging. That wasn't strange by itself. People put their phones face down all the time. What made it strange was that she never did. She liked seeing the screen light up. Notifications meant she was wanted. She told me that once, like it was a joke. I believed it because it sounded true.
I stood in the doorway longer than necessary, watching the cable stretch from the wall to the mattress. The room smelled faintly like heat and old detergent. Her fan was on low. The blades made a soft clicking sound every few rotations, like it was tired.
She was in the bathroom.
I didn't touch the phone. I didn't need to. Just knowing it was there felt like touching it anyway. My body reacted before my mind did. A tightness behind my eyes. A small pressure in my chest. Not pain. More like anticipation.
She came out brushing her teeth, foam still at the corner of her mouth.
"Oh," she said. "You're here early."
I nodded. Early meant unexpected. Unexpected meant unprepared. That mattered.
She glanced at the bed. Her eyes flicked to the phone for half a second, then back to me. It was subtle. If I hadn't already been looking, I would have missed it.
I sat down without asking.
She didn't tell me not to.
We talked about nothing. Work. Traffic. Someone she hated at the office. I responded at the right moments. I had learned how. If you pause just long enough before answering, people think you're listening deeply. If you interrupt gently, they feel important. I used both.
At some point she sat beside me. Her thigh touched mine. Her skin was warm. Too warm. I remember thinking it felt like a fever, but I didn't say that. I smiled instead.
The phone vibrated.
Once.
She didn't look this time. That was worse.
I watched her jaw tighten. The muscle there jumped like something trapped under the skin. I imagined pressing my thumb into it. I imagined feeling it give way.
"You can check it," I said casually.
She laughed. Too fast. "It's nothing."
The vibration came again. Longer this time. Persistent. Like someone knocking on a door they knew would be opened eventually.
Her hand moved before she decided to move it. I could tell because she hesitated halfway, fingers hovering, as if waiting for permission from a part of herself that hadn't spoken yet.
When she picked up the phone, she didn't unlock it. She just turned it over so the screen faced up. The notification banner was gone. Whatever it was had already been hidden.
She placed it back down. Face up this time.
"See?" she said. "Nothing."
I nodded again.
That night, while she slept, I watched her breathing change.
People think sleep is peaceful. It's not. It's when the body tells the truth. Her breaths were uneven, shallow in places, deep in others. Like she was running somewhere without moving.
Her phone was under her pillow.
I could tell because the mattress bulged slightly, like something buried too close to the surface.
I didn't touch it. I didn't need to.
I just imagined it vibrating against her skull. Over and over. Messages pressing into bone. Words seeping inward, rewriting her from the inside.
When she shifted, her mouth opened slightly. A thin sound escaped her throat. Not a word. More like air passing through something narrow.
For a moment, I wondered if she was dreaming about me.
Then I realized it didn't matter.
By the morning, something had already changed. I could feel it. The way you feel a bruise before you see it. The way your tongue finds a sore spot again and again, even when it hurts.
I smiled at her when she woke up.
She smiled back.
Her smile didn't reach her eyes.