[Writing Exercise] The Silence Between Us

The apartment was dim. Not dark—there was still that glow of blue from the TV screen, flipping mindlessly through one YouTube short after another. The voices from the screen blurred into white noise, drifting between bursts of laughter and drama. None of it mattered. None of it stuck.

I sat on the far end of the couch, legs tucked under me, watching James without really watching him. He was leaned back, phone in hand, eyes glazed over as his thumb flicked upward again and again. No talking. No acknowledgment. It was like I wasn’t even in the room.

I glanced at him again, hoping for a glance back, some shared smile or joke, something small to anchor me to the moment and remind me that we were still us. But there was nothing. Just the soft glow of his screen, and the buzz of shorts meant to kill time.

And just like that, the quiet stole over me like a tide. My eyelids drooped. I told myself to stay awake, to be present, to prove I was trying. But the pull was too strong, and I drifted—half-asleep, not quite gone, not quite here.

James didn’t say a word.

I woke up alone on the couch, a crick in my neck and the kind of hollow ache in my chest that came from trying too hard and still falling short. The clock said I’d only been out for twenty minutes, but everything felt heavier. Like maybe he’d left the room on purpose. Like maybe my quiet snoring had been one more disappointment in a growing list I could never quite see.

He wasn’t like this before Thanksgiving. Back then, even on my bad days, he’d tug me awake with a grin or nudge me toward the bed with a blanket and a gentle kiss. But now, he stayed up through the night and slept through the day, justifying it with vague promises of getting on a schedule. A schedule that never came.

Maybe he was tired. Maybe he was overwhelmed. Or maybe, just maybe, he was doing it on purpose.

A lesson.

A punishment.

I hated thinking that, but I couldn’t ignore the creeping suspicion anymore. I could hear his words in my head from weeks ago, when he said, “You’re always falling asleep on me.” It was a joke at the time. At least, I thought it was.

I pressed my face into my hands and exhaled slowly. I wanted him to sleep. I really, truly did. If rest was what he needed to feel whole again, to be okay, then I would sacrifice whatever I had to. I’d take the loneliness. I’d take the silence.

But it felt like he wanted me to feel that loneliness.

And that made everything harder.

Because I missed him. I missed us.

I missed the way we used to speak in half-sentences and full silences that felt warm instead of cold. Now, our silence had sharp edges, and I kept cutting myself on the space between us.

I checked my phone. No message. No missed call.

Still nothing.

I thought about getting up. Making a noise. Drawing him back into the room. But I was too tired to try again today. The emotional kind of tired. The kind that seeps into your bones.

So instead, I stood slowly, pulling the blanket around my shoulders like armor. I walked past his door and paused, hearing the low murmur of his voice on a headset, gaming with someone else, in a world that didn’t include me.

A beat passed.

Then another.

And I went back to bed. Alone.

Again.