Time Passes

It starts one Friday night.

The kids are at your mum’s, the house is quiet, and Tom’s been touchy all evening — hands on your waist when you pass in the kitchen, lips at your neck when you’re making tea.

By the time you’re in bed, his kisses are deeper, his hands more urgent. He rolls you onto your back, pressing into you with a weight you haven’t felt in a while.

At first, you respond, you want him, but something feels… different. His grip on your hips is firmer, his thrusts harder, almost like he’s trying to prove something or reclaim something.

Then he says it, low against your ear:

“Bet you don’t think about him like this.”

You freeze. “What?”

He doesn’t stop moving. “Whoever it was you pictured that night. Bet he doesn’t make you feel like this.”

You push at his chest. “Tom, for God’s sake, there was no him. It was in my head. That’s all.”

He sits back on his heels, breathing hard. “Yeah, well, I can’t just switch it off. You put it there, Em.”

Your temper flares. “I told you because I trust you. And now you’re throwing it back at me every chance you get.”

“It’s not every chance”

“It’s enough,” you snap, pulling the duvet over yourself. “You don’t trust me, do you? Not really.”

He runs a hand through his hair, frustrated. “It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s just”

“No. That’s exactly what it is,” you cut in. “I’m your wife, Tom. If you can’t trust me over a stupid fantasy, then what are we even doing?”

The air between you is thick, the bedroom too small for the silence that follows.

From there, it’s like a crack in the wall that keeps widening.

Small disagreements turn sharp faster than they used to. He brings it up in sideways comments — “At least it’s just me in your bed tonight,” or “You’re quiet… thinking about someone else?” — and each time it chips at you.

You find yourself snapping quicker, slamming cupboard doors harder, retreating into yourself when you’d normally lean into him.

One night, after another pointless argument over nothing, you lie in bed facing opposite walls. The distance between you feels bigger than the mattress.

You cannot help but think that telling him that morning was a mistake.