What the Dishes Never Said

Mira washed the dishes like she did every night—quietly, methodically, as though the porcelain could confess if scrubbed hard enough.

The sink water was warm. The house was cold.

Her partner, Jules, sat at the kitchen table scrolling through her phone, one knee tucked up, lip caught between her teeth, not speaking.

They hadn’t spoken much in weeks.

Not because they fought.

Not because there was cruelty.

But because something softer—and stranger—had bloomed between them: distance that wore kindness like a mask.

Mira remembered the first time she saw Jules.

It was at a reading downtown, in a bookstore that smelled like dust and other people's hope. Jules had been reading poetry about women in war zones and the ways patriarchy hides inside linen closets and lullabies.

Mira had fallen in love with her voice before she ever knew her laugh.

Their first year together felt like a reclamation.

They built a home of secondhand furniture and third chances.

They painted the bedroom teal and covered the walls in Polaroids:

Jules dancing barefoot at midnight.

Mira sleeping under a book.

Two mugs side by side, names scratched in sharpie—hers, hers.

Their love was quiet, but revolutionary.

Feminist in practice.

Queer in spirit.

Soft in its resistance to the world’s hard edges.

They agreed on everything—

except the pace of becoming.

Jules wanted a life of loud things.

Marches, microphones, open letters.

She was always planning the next protest, the next panel, the next fight for someone who couldn’t speak yet.

Mira wanted soft rebellions.

Growing herbs in mason jars.

Teaching queer kids how to write poetry.

Calling her mother and not lying anymore.

They were both healing—but on different timelines.

And nobody tells you how to mourn something while you're still living in it.

Tonight, Mira dried her hands and leaned against the sink.

“I think we forgot how to talk,” she said softly.

Jules looked up. “We’re talking now.”

“No. I mean—really talk. About what hurts. About what doesn’t fit anymore.”

The silence between them swelled. Mira felt her throat tighten.

She wasn't trying to be dramatic.

She was trying to be honest.

But honesty, even between women who swore to never lie, sometimes comes out shaped like betrayal.

“I know you want to be seen,” Mira said, “but I want to be held. And I don’t think you have room for that anymore.”

Jules blinked slowly. Her eyes were glassy, not angry.

“That’s not fair,” she said.

“I know.”

“You make it sound like I’m leaving you behind.”

“You’re not. You’re just—growing in a direction I can’t follow.”

They didn’t cry.

They’d done that already, months ago, quietly, when they noticed the bed didn’t feel as full.

When the shared toothbrush cup began to collect dust.

No one had cheated.

No one had shouted.

But somehow, even inside a feminist, queer, affirming love—

two people can disappear from each other and forget how to ask, Where did you go?

The next morning, Mira packed her books into boxes labeled Eventually.

She left the teal-painted bedroom untouched.

She kept the mug with her name and left Jules the one with hers.

Jules didn’t stop her.

Not out of cruelty.

But because sometimes, even love must bow to truth.

A week later, Mira moved into a studio above a bakery.

She filled it with plants and silence that didn’t ache.

She began writing again.

She joined a queer writing group.

She stopped apologizing before she spoke.

She let herself be furious about things she had forgiven too quickly in the name of peace.

She still loved Jules.

She probably always would.

But love, as she had learned, is not always enough.

Sometimes love is the seed.

And leaving is how you learn to bloom.