When Jason suggested we sleep in separate rooms “for my snoring,” I swallowed the sting and tried to be agreeable. I taped my nose, drank sleepy teas with floaty names, and trained myself to lie bolt-upright like a museum statue. Still, he migrated to the guest room with his charger, laptop, and—by week’s end—his razor and cologne. The door started locking. “So you don’t wake me,” he said. I don’t sleepwalk.
At 2:37 a.m. a few weeks later, a cold square of light blinked on our nightstand. Jason had accidentally left his phone. A message flashed: “Call me when she’s asleep. — Lana.” My stomach dropped. I padded down the hallway. The guest-room door was ajar, a thin blade of light. Jason sat at the desk, headset on, smiling at his laptop. “No, she thinks it’s the snoring,” he whispered. “She has no clue.”
I went back to bed and shook. In the morning I made eggs like any other day and, while the coffee dripped, I restored a backup from our shared cloud. The texts shocked me—not with romance, but with obsession. Dozens a day: “You’re almost there.” “Visualize abundance.” Spreadsheets, scripts, invoices. Nineteen thousand dollars in payments. We weren’t dealing with an affair. We were funding a fantasy: Lana the “mentor,” selling ladders to the sky—and Jason was climbing like belief could turn air to stairs.
Two years ago it was miracle serums stacked in the garage. I hoped that lesson held. He locked a door and called it rest.
That night I set two bowls of ramen down and slid the phone across. “How long have you been paying her?” I asked. He didn’t flinch. “You don’t get it, Maya. This is an investment. When the checks roll in, you’ll thank me.” I took a winter-cold breath. “I do get it,” I said. “You didn’t trust me with the truth. You gambled our future and hid the bet behind my snoring.”
I canceled what I could, froze the rest, and called the bank. I booked a sleep study anyway—because I deserved quiet that didn’t cost me everything. Jason moved his things out in a sulk, then out of the house with excuses. People asked if we split over snoring. In a way, yes: I finally heard the alarm.
Some nights the house hums with honest silence. I sleep in one room now—mine—and wake rested. I brew plain tea and save receipts. I choose what is real over what is shiny. I used to believe sharing a bed was proof of closeness. Now I know: the truest closeness is letting someone rest beside you without locking a door between you—and refusing to be the pillow that smothers your own voice.
