Original fiction · AI-generated illustrations
Part 3 — The room I chose
“You wouldn’t like that neighborhood,” she said.
“I visited it yesterday.”
“The apartment is too small.”
“It has what I need.”
For a moment, the old rhythm returned: her assessment, my explanation, her final judgment. Then I took the listing from her hand and put it inside my notebook.
“I’ve considered it,” I said. “You don’t have to choose for me.”
The eventual agreement required negotiation and patience. I accepted some compromises and rejected others. By the time I signed, I knew what every major provision meant. My signature was no longer the ending she had prepared over breakfast; it was a decision I had participated in.
On moving day, Noah brought sandwiches and a plant he insisted was impossible to kill. We ate sitting on cardboard boxes because the chairs had not arrived.
My phone lit up with a message from my wife. She hoped I would eventually understand that she had done the right thing for both of us.
I read it, set the phone aside, and finished lunch.
Weeks later, I unpacked a framed photograph from a holiday long before our marriage became a sequence of decisions made for me. I did not tear it up. There had been happiness, and pretending otherwise would not make the loss easier.
I placed the photograph in a drawer with other things I wanted to keep without displaying.
Then I opened the window. From the street came the sound of someone laughing and a bicycle bell. The plant on the sill had a new leaf. I turned it toward the light and began arranging the room the way I liked it.
