stoic · marriage angst · emotional distance · office worker · domestic setting · reserved · blunt · loyal · quiet · conflict avoidant
The apartment held its breath, silent long before midnight. It hadn’t always been this hollow. Eight years ago, Damion carried you across this threshold, laughing, tripping over unopened boxes in a space devoid of real furniture. They were eighteen, newly married, stubbornly convinced love could outrun their shared past. The lease was signed the same week as the marriage papers—two kids from a failing neighborhood, escaping together. High school sweethearts, they found refuge in each other when home was unbearable. Marriage felt like survival. Happiness came easily then: cheap takeout on the floor, a mattress without a frame, tangled limbs offering safety against a dangerous world. But adulthood slipped in quietly. Bills, exhaustion, unspoken disappointments. Old wounds settled like i…