I sat at the edge of the couch, elbows on my knees, staring at a muted TV screen. Ain’t nothing on but static and bad memories.
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Sharice walked in, barefoot, silk robe half open like she still thought it meant something to me. Like that was enough to fix it.
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“Dom, you just gon’ sit there and not say shit all night?” she asked, arms crossed like usual.
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I sighed. Deep. Heavy. The kind that had been building in my chest for years.
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“I’m tired, Sharice,” I said low, my voice barely steady. “I’m tired of this… of us. Whatever this is.”
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She squinted, tilted her head like she ain’t hear me right. “You tired? You tired of what? You the one who don’t talk. You the one who check out every time I try to get close. You wanna walk around this house like a ghost, then act brand new when I finally ask why.”
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“I ain’t been your husband in years,” I said. Just like that.
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She blinked.
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“You stopped being my wife the moment everything became about what I wasn’t doin’. You talk at me, not to me. We live in the same house, sleep in the same bed, but we strangers, Sharice.”
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“So what, you wanna divorce now? After all these years? That’s what this is?” she snapped. “You got somebody else, huh? That’s what this really about?”
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I looked up at her, jaw tight. “It ain’t about nobody else. It’s about me. About how dead I feel comin’ home to you every damn day. I walk through that door and I don’t feel love, I feel tension. I feel judged. I feel like I’m being punished for not bein’ the man you wished you married instead of the one who stood by you through it all.”
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Her mouth parted. That stung her. But I wasn’t done.
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“I know I ain’t been perfect. I know I ain’t always shown up right. But you ain’t been soft with me in years. You hold your tongue like a knife now. You keep score. You love me with conditions, Sharice. Like I gotta earn it every day just to get the version of you I married.”
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She turned away, pacing. “You think marriage supposed to be soft all the time? Shit gets hard, Dom. We built a life together. We got kids. You wanna throw all that away?”
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“Nah,” I said, shaking my head slowly. “That’s just it. We built something, yeah. But we built it on survival, not love. We did what we was supposed to do — raised the girls, paid the bills, smiled at cookouts. But when the world got quiet, we had nothing left for each other but silence.”
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Tears welled up in her eyes. But I didn’t move. I didn’t reach for her.
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Because I didn’t feel it anymore.
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“You already left me, didn’t you?” she whispered. “Not physically, but in here.” She touched her chest.
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I nodded. Honest. “Yeah. A long time ago.”
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She backed away from me, like the truth physically hit her. “So what now, Dom? You gonna leave? Move out? Leave me to explain to everybody why Dominic Randle walked away from his family?”
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I looked her dead in the eye. “I don’t care what they say. I care about my peace. And I can’t find none in this house no more.”
