THE EMPTY SIDE OF THE COUCH

The apartment began to sound different.

Mason couldn't have explained it to anyone who hadn't lived there. The refrigerator hummed as it always had. Rain tapped the same windows. His keyboard clicked through late nights.

But the quiet on the other side of the couch was different.

Adrian stopped sitting there.

It wasn't a dramatic declaration. He simply took his laptop to his room after dinner. He made plans on Friday evenings. He bought a second laundry basket and began separating their things with such tidy efficiency that Mason wanted to overturn both baskets and argue about socks.

Instead, he watched.

On a rainy Tuesday, Mason developed a fever.

He texted Adrian: Think I'm dying. Tell the world I was handsome.

Adrian responded nine minutes later: Thermometer in the bathroom. Medicine in the cabinet. If your fever is high or symptoms get worse, call the clinic. I'll be home after seven.

It was thoughtful, practical, and perfectly ordinary.

Mason stared at the message until his phone dimmed.

When Adrian came home, he checked Mason's temperature, left a bowl of soup near his computer, and asked whether he needed anything else.

"Can you sit with me?" Mason asked.

Adrian glanced toward the hallway. "For a bit."

He sat in the armchair.

Not on the couch.

Mason felt absurdly close to tears over a piece of furniture.

"I used to fall asleep on you," he said.

"You did."

"You never complained."

"You looked peaceful."

"Did you like it?"

Adrian's fingers tightened around his mug.

"Mason. You're sick."

"I'm not delirious."

"Then don't ask questions you aren't ready to hear answered."

Mason wanted to insist he was ready. But Adrian was watching him with that patient, exhausted expression, and Mason knew he would be lying.

He changed the subject.

Two days later, when the fever was gone, Mason opened his editing software to work on an anniversary montage for a client. He searched his hard drive for a sample music track and accidentally found a folder he'd forgotten existed.

MARRIED LIFE.

He had named it as a joke.

Inside were dozens of short videos filmed over two years. Adrian burning toast while arguing that Mason was to blame. Adrian wearing ridiculous reindeer antlers on Christmas morning. Adrian asleep with a book on his chest, his glasses slipping down his nose. Adrian laughing when Mason tried to make pancakes in the shape of a dinosaur and produced what looked like a diseased island.

In one video, filmed eighteen months earlier, Mason's own voice came from behind the camera.

"My wife is mad at me again."

Adrian, standing at the sink, turned around. "Because you used my good knife to open a cardboard box."

"You love me anyway."

Adrian looked straight into the lens.

"Unfortunately," he said, smiling.

Mason paused the video.

He watched the smile frame by frame.

The joke had never looked like a joke from Adrian's side of the camera.

Mason sat motionless until his screen went dark.

That evening, he found Adrian in the hallway holding a folded piece of paper.

"What's that?" Mason asked.

"A viewing appointment."

"For what?"

"An apartment."

The world seemed to tilt.

"You're moving?"

Adrian looked tired. "I'm considering it."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I am telling you."

Mason stared at him. He had spent two weeks insisting that nothing needed to change. Now the possibility of change stood in their hallway holding an apartment listing.

"Please don't," he said before he could think better of it.

Adrian's expression flickered. "Don't what?"

"Move."

"Give me a reason."

Mason opened his mouth.

He had a hundred reasons. He knew Adrian's coffee order. He knew the sounds of his footsteps. He knew that Adrian pretended to hate silly movies but always cried at the endings. He knew the room would be colder without him.

But none of those reasons belonged to Adrian. They were all about what Mason wanted to keep.

"I don't know how to say it yet," Mason admitted.

Adrian nodded once, pain flashing across his face.

"Then I think you should let me go."