The Words I Couldn’t Return
The Woman Who Stayed Chapter 23
The Words I Couldn't Return
Tonight, something happened that hadn't happened for over two months.
As we lay in bed, Fraz pulled me a little closer and, almost as if the words had escaped him before he could think twice, quietly whispered,
"I love you."
For a second, my heart paused.
Not because everything was suddenly better.
But because after weeks of coldness, disrespect and emotional distance, those three words carried a weight they hadn't carried before.
A year ago, I would have instinctively whispered them back.
Tonight, I couldn't.
Instead, I simply smiled and replied,
"Thank you."
It wasn't said to punish him.
It wasn't said to make a point.
It was the only truthful response I had left.
Over the years, "thank you" had sometimes become a playful joke between us whenever he said, "I love you." But tonight there was no teasing behind it.
Tonight, it was protection.
Somewhere along the way, I had realised that I could no longer hand those words back simply because they had been offered to me.
I needed to feel them.
Not in whispers spoken in the darkness.
Not in fleeting moments before sleep.
But in the way I was treated when life was ordinary.
In kindness.
In consistency.
In respect.
In choosing me, even when it required effort.
When he heard my reply, he let out a small grunt of disappointment.
It was only a sound.
But somehow it said everything.
He had wanted something more from me.
Something I could no longer give so easily.
A few moments later he drifted off to sleep, his arm resting loosely around me in a half-hearted spoon that felt more like habit than longing.
As I lay there awake, I found myself studying the moment rather than surrendering to it.
What did it mean?
Was this the beginning of something returning?
A flicker of guilt?
An attempt to bridge the distance between us?
Or simply another small gesture that would disappear again with the morning light?
I didn't know.
And perhaps that was the hardest part.
Nothing felt certain anymore.
Every act of tenderness carried a question mark.
Every kind word was weighed against the silence that had come before it.
I wanted to believe him.
I wanted those three words to settle somewhere deep inside me.
But love had become something far bigger than language.
Love had become evidence.
It had to be lived before it could be believed.
So I placed this moment where so many others had already gone.
Not on a pedestal.
Not in the bin.
Just another piece of the puzzle.
Another quiet clue in a marriage whose picture I could no longer see clearly.