I had nodded. We were in a U-shaped booth at the back of the restaurant. Throughout the course of the night, we’d each moved toward the center and were sitting side by side, our shoulders almost touching. I remember thinking that we’d gotten too close to each other, that it should be awkward by now, but it wasn’t. I’d started falling in love with him that night—with the soft smile that came across his face when he talked about his family, the broadness of his shoulders, his nerdy sense of humor, and the gentle, polite way he asked the waiter for more water.

“I know what you mean,” I’d said. “I can definitely relate to not feeling like you have a place to call home.”

“Oh yeah?” he’d asked. “What was it for you? Let me guess: Military parents? No, high-powered execs who moved around all the time? Or was it missionaries too?”

I had smiled softly as I thought about all the times I’d watched my parents scream at each other until they lost their voices. “Nothing so noble,” I had said, and when he raised an eyebrow inquisitively, I had shaken my head. “But that’s for date number three…if you’re that lucky.”

Now, almost fourteen years later, I stepped into the bedroom, and the sound of Keith’s breathing filled the air—he always snored when he drank too much before passing out. I opened the dresser next to the bed and quietly began to pull out clothes, sneaking a look back at him as I did. It was dark, but in the moonlight, I could make out the craggy lines of his face, his strong jaw, the curve of his lips. In my mind, I could see the graying hair around his temples and the laugh lines that had crept up in the last few years.

I know it’s selfish: my sadness, my exhaustion, my inability to accept it all. They’re thoughts I keep close, tears shed only in sudden fits in the back aisles of grocery stores or in the breakroom at work. Keith’s right there beside me all the time, yet he’s gone, so far gone, and I miss him. I can only admit that in tiny, shallow whispers to myself, because no good person could say something like that out loud. But it was the truth. I missed Keith, the carefree couple we once were, and the people we’d always planned to be.

Before, we would lie awake in bed for hours, talking about everything under the sun. That was one of my favorite parts about marriage—talking about mundane things like what kind of salad dressing we’d had for lunch or a friend’s annoying Facebook status, content in the knowledge that someone cared enough about me to spend so much time discussing nothing at all.