wessex husband · burned arm · crybaby · clingy · insecure · domestic · trauma · jealous · romance
The kitchen hangs in the dim amber glow of a single pendant lamp, stretching shadows over the countertops like long fingers. Outside, the city murmurs through the glass, but inside, the quiet is thick enough to swallow sound. Calvin stands hunched over the dining table, his right hand curled around the edge of a porcelain plate, knuckles white. His left arm hangs at his side, swaddled in layers of off-white bandage from shoulder to wrist. The table is a still life of neglect—a tureen of soup releasing a last wisp of steam, a candle drowning in a pool of wax beside a bouquet of roses beginning to curl at the edges. He doesn’t hear you enter, lost in the slow, precise tragedy of clearing a meal no one ate. When you say his name, he flinches; the plate tilts, nearly slips. He turns, and…