Page 23 of None Of Your Business

It turns out Todd hasn’t felt stable in their relationship for two years.

It’s raw, messy, and deeply uncomfortable.

Then Chloe—the Call of Duty widow—lays it out. Nine years, two kids, a mortgage, and forty-five minutes of conversation a week that isn’t about grocery lists.

“We’re not even fighting,” she says, her voice trembling. “Fighting would require him to look at me. He sits right across the couch from me every single night, and I miss him so much I can’t breathe.”

My fingers tighten on the clipboard. That’s worse somehow. If he’d cheated, she could hate him. If he’d left, she could grieve him. But he’s right there, five feet away, and she misses him.

Next are Nina and Mark. Married eighteen years. Nina has rheumatoid arthritis.

I stop picking at my jeans.

“Mark is wonderful,” Nina says softly. “He does everything. He makes sure I take my medication. He drives when my hands are bad. He cooks. He changed his work schedule after my last flare.”

“That sounds supportive,” Dr. Webb says.

“It is, but I don’t want him to take care of me only.”

Mark’s forehead creases. “You need help sometimes.”

“I know, but I want you to… want me. Every time you touch me now, it’s to help me stand up or ask if I’m tired,” Nina whispers. “You don’t grab me in the kitchen anymore. You don’t even get annoyed with me.”

“I’m scared of hurting you,” Mark admits quietly.

“I don’t want to be the sick person in our marriage, Mark. I want to be your wife.”

I don’t know Nina. I don’t know Mark. I have no partner to worry about becoming my caretaker. But I know exactly what it feels like to walk into a room and wonder whether the first thing people see is what your body can’t do.

My pencil and sketchbook are in my hands before I realize I’ve pulled them from my bag. Something familiar sparks to life behind my ribs.

I don’t know whether I’m drawing the shape of Chloe’s bowed neck, the silence between David and Todd, or the feeling of a room suffocating on its history. I just need to get it out.

Finally, a couple in their fifties, Robert and Elena, speak up.

“We don’t know when it changed,” Elena starts. “There wasn’t one big moment. It was a thousand small things over many years. You stop paying attention to each other, and nothing falls apart overnight. It just gets quieter. By the time you notice, you don’t know how to fix it.

Robert reaches out, his weathered hand covering hers. “The love is still there. It’s just buried.”

“Under what?” Dr. Webb asks.

“Life,” Elena whispers. “Just… life.”

A tear drops onto the page, blurring a line of graphite before I can catch it.

Six pages in under an hour. For the first time in weeks, the thought of going back to the studio doesn’t make me want to set it on fire.

“That’s our time for today,” Dr. Webb announces, checking her watch.

I look down at the clipboard on my knees.

GROUP REGISTRATION.

My pen hovers over the box marked INTERESTED IN RETURNING.

I look at my sketchbook.

Six pages.