What it says about your relationship when your partner sleeps with their back to you

He shrugged like it was nothing. To him, I think it was.

Some afternoons I would find them on the porch, not speaking, Hazel’s head tipped sideways against the railing while Eli sketched something in a notebook.

“Mrs. Mave,” he said one afternoon, looking up at me. He had called me that since he was twelve, when he decided calling me only by my first name felt too casual and anything more formal felt too far. “She ate half a sandwich today.”

“Thank you, Eli.”

“For what?”

“For sitting with her.”

I found her journals once.

He shrugged like it was nothing. To him, I think it was.

I found her journals once, the old ones from freshman year, tucked behind a row of paperbacks. Names of girls. Names of boys. Cruel little phrases written in her round handwriting, the kind of words you only write down because you cannot say them out loud.

I put the journal back exactly where I found it.