rolledtrousers:

Oliver was changing the sheets ten minutes after she’d left.

It would be a lie to say he hadn’t counted each second, run through the hypotheticals in his mind about how far away she’d have to be before she might realise she’d forgotten something, past the distance where she could just turn around. She’d have to take out her phone and actually let him know she had left something behind. Five minutes away seemed like the threshold, and so he counted to ten, watched the number on his phone tick up as if pulling him out of a trance. He did it in the living room, so he didn’t have to occupy the same space as the offending laundry.

It was the thought of going back to sleep, of lying down and trying to fall unconscious with that most olfactory of reminders enveloping him, that was too much to bear. So he stripped the mattress, emptied the pillowcases, hurled the duvet from one side of the room to another to make a little space. Morning light flooded his room like bleach, and for a minute he paused.

Mistakes happen. Even grand ones, the pile-ups of the world, start with something small; a distracted driver glancing at their phone, a patch of black ice. But most curious are those which seem to take a life of their own, continue apace even though he should have the ability to stop them, should be able to intervene and divert the evening away from that most regrettable of directions. He could have done something. He should have done something.

He changed his sheets, and he went back to bed.

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Guys rolledtrousers is baaaaaaaaaack.