“Cleaning,” I said. “That smell is getting worse.”
He clenched his jaw. “You’re imagining it.”
I chuckled, hoping it would soften.
It didn’t.
After that, every time I touched the sheets or reached for something near his side, his mood shifted instantly. He became defensive. Irritated in a way that made no sense.
Then one night, when I said I was going to wash everything again, he exploded.
“Don’t touch my things. Leave the bed alone.”
I stood there, staring at him.
In eight years, I’d never seen him react like that over something so ordinary.
And in that instant, a chill and a stillness began to grow inside me.
Because people don’t panic like that… unless they have something to hide.
After that, I couldn’t stop noticing things.
In how quickly he ignored any mention of the smell.
In how tense he became if I got too close to his side of the mattress.
How he lay there at night pretending everything was normal, while I lay stiff beside him, breathing through my mouth, wondering what it was that had really accompanied me to sleep.
Then came the night I couldn’t stand it anymore.
The smell felt alive.
I lay in the dark, eyes wide open, heart pounding, convinced that something beneath us was rotting. I felt a tightness in my chest. A chill of dread ran down my spine.
It wasn’t just the smell anymore.
It was the feeling.
That something in my life had gone terribly wrong… and I’d been too afraid to face it.
The next morning, Miguel told me he was going to Dallas for three days.
He dragged his suitcase to the door, kissed my forehead, and said, “Make sure you lock it.”
I nodded.
But the weight on my chest was crushing.
When the door closed behind him and his footsteps faded, the house fell into a silence that felt unnatural.
I stood there for a long moment, staring at the door.
Then, slowly, I turned toward the hallway.
Toward the bedroom.
Toward the bed.
My heart began to pound so hard I could hear it in my ears.
Something is wrong.
And this time… I’m going to find out what it is.
I dragged the mattress to the center of the room by myself. My hands were already shaking when I went to the kitchen and grabbed a box cutter. The house felt too quiet, as if it were waiting.
I knelt beside the mattress and pressed the blade against the fabric.
Then I made the first cut.
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