Five.

Owen noticed the post-it on the fridge around 7:43 p.m.

Went for a walk. Don’t wait up. – R

Nothing unusual. Not really. Raegan went on walks sometimes. She liked the quiet kind of freedom. The fresh air, her headphones in, the world blurred just enough to feel distant. She said it helped her think. Owen had always admired that about her, even if he didn’t quite understand it. He’d always been someone who thought best by doing. Cleaning, fixing, distracting himself until the thoughts dulled. Raegan thought by wandering.

Still, he stood there longer than necessary, the refrigerator humming softly behind the note. The magnet holding it in place was shaped like a lighthouse, a souvenir from a trip years ago when they’d driven three hours just to see the ocean in winter. Raegan had insisted. The water feels different when it’s cold, she’d said. He remembered how she’d run ahead of him on the beach, boots sinking into wet sand, hair whipping around her face as she laughed.

Lately, the notes had been coming more often. Short ones. Efficient. Detached.

She used to leave him sweetness instead.

"Made banana bread, saved you the best slice 🩵" or "Meet me on the roof after work! The sunset looks like fire tonight." Notes that felt like invitations. Like proof she was thinking of him even when she wasn’t there.

Now it was just... "don’t wait up".

He peeled the note off the fridge, folded it once, then unfolded it again as if the words might change. They didn’t.

Owen grabbed a beer from the fridge and let the door swing shut on its own. He didn’t bother turning on the overhead light. Raegan hated it. She said it felt too harsh, too exposing. She preferred lamps, warm pools of amber that made everything feel softer, more forgiving. Over time, Owen had grown used to it. Tonight, he left the apartment as she would’ve wanted it, dim and quiet.

He sank into the couch, the leather sighing beneath his weight. The cushion beside him was untouched, still holding its shape. He stared at it for a second, then reached for his phone.

I*******m. Scroll. A coworker’s beach vacation. Scroll. Someone else’s engagement ring. Scroll. A dog wearing a birthday hat. He double-tapped a few photos without really seeing them, then set the phone face down on the coffee table.

The silence pressed in.

It wasn’t loud or dramatic. No slammed doors, no raised voices. Just the absence of sound. No music humming from the kitchen, no soft singing from the bathroom, no Raegan narrating her thoughts out loud the way she used to. She’d once joked that silence made her itchy. Now she seemed wrapped in it.

Something nagged at him. A thin thread of unease he couldn’t quite name.

Raegan had been different lately. Distant. But not in a way that demanded attention. It was quieter than that. A kind of vanishing. Like living with the ghost of the girl he used to know.

He remembered her sprawled cross-legged on the living room floor, scribbling poems on the backs of receipts, muttering lines under her breath. The way she’d wake him at midnight with wild ideas like "What if we packed up and drove until sunrise? What if we lived somewhere with mountains? What if we didn’t wait?" She’d been unpredictable, tender, alive. Like she felt everything in color while he lived mostly in grayscale.

This version of Raegan barely spoke at dinner. Sometimes she didn’t even finish her plate. She pushed food around with her fork and said, I’m tired, like it explained everything. And maybe it did.

He kept telling himself it was normal. People changed. Relationships settled. This was just what happened when life got heavy. She was stressed. He was, too. Work had been... overwhelming. The late nights, endless deadlines, the kind of exhaustion that made him want quiet instead of conversation. And it wasn’t like she was giving him much to go off of. If something was wrong, shouldn’t she just say it?

But deep down, Owen knew he hadn’t made it easy.

When things got emotional, he shut down. When Raegan cried, he froze. Not because he didn’t care, because he cared too much and didn’t know what to do with it. Feelings made him uncomfortable. He never learned how to hold them gently. He just put them away, tucked them into neat mental boxes and pretended they’d stay there.

His father’s voice echoed in his head, familiar and firm: Don’t turn everything into a big deal. Just keep moving.

So Owen did. Even when Raegan needed him to stop.

He took a long sip of his beer, the bitterness lingering on his tongue. The clock on the wall ticked louder than it should have. 8:12 p.m.

Lately, she didn’t ask him to go on walks with her. She didn’t crawl into his lap while he watched TV, didn’t hook her fingers into his belt loops and pull him close just because she could. She didn’t light candles or play music on Sunday mornings. Those small rituals had disappeared so slowly he hadn’t noticed until they were gone.

She just existed beside him. And somehow, that hurt more than any fight they’d ever had.

He’d never really considered she might be thinking of leaving. Not seriously. That was something that happened to other people. Couples who yelled. Couples who broke things. Couples who failed loudly.

Not them.

Not until tonight. Not until he looked at that yellow square on the fridge and realized she hadn’t said when, or if, she’d be back.

Owen leaned forward, elbows on his knees, staring at the darkened hallway that led to their bedroom. Her shoes weren’t by the door. He hadn’t noticed that earlier.

His chest tightened, slow and unfamiliar.

Owen didn’t know it yet, but Raegan wasn’t walking away to clear her head.

She was walking toward something new.