No Seat At Your Table

Summary

Grace hated it when I talked at the dinner table.

"Chewing with your mouth open is incredibly rude," she'd say, her voice flat and dismissive.

Then she would slip her AirPods in, scrolling through videos on her screen, leaving me to swallow my words and my pride. After two years of this, we were nothing more than strangers sharing a lease, quietly passing the salt.

I used to think adult love just naturally quieted down over time—that passion simply rusted into a dull, comfortable silence.