40

— Z A H I R —

I come out of her bathroom while drying my hair. With a towel on my head and my hand ruffling it to get them dry. I walk out with lazy steps and my gaze falls over the small bed in her room.

Precisely my wife got my attention first. She is making the bed. There is a pillow in her grip which she puts to the other side and completes her work of spreading the mattress neatly over the bed.

She then stands straight, holding the pillow. She turns to do something else but halts as soon as she looks at me.

“You can use the bed,” she says, followed by an exhale.

I frown when I notice she is stepping back with the pillow in her grip. “And what about you?” I ask, bitterness in my tone as I notice it but I did not want to use it on her. It came out naturally because somewhere in my mind, the answer was clear to it.

“I can sleep on the floor.” She shrugs like this is a very normal thing. Her hand gestures to her left and I see she has set a mattress for herself over the floor.