Then night would come, Miguel would lie down on his side of the bed, and the smell would return like a curse that knew your schedule.
You tried to be gentle about it in the beginning.
“Do you smell that?” you asked one night, propped up on one elbow, watching him scroll through his phone.
He barely glanced up. “Smell what?”
“That weird… I don’t know. Damp smell. Like something spoiled.”
Miguel sighed the way tired people do when they want to make your concern feel theatrical. “Ana, you’re imagining it.”
You lay back down, embarrassed by how quickly those words worked on you. Imagining it. As if your own senses had become untrustworthy. As if the thing turning your stomach every night existed only because your mind had gotten too dramatic in the dark.
