For the next several days, the soup became a part of my life.
Every evening.
Exactly 7:14.
The curtains closed.
The white bowl appeared.
And Daniel watched me eat.
I began paying attention to everything.
The smell.
The color.
The texture.
The ingredients.
I noticed that the soup was never exactly the same, but it always had the same dark color and bitter taste.
Sometimes there were tiny green leaves floating on the surface.
Sometimes there were pieces of vegetables.
Once, I found something that looked like crushed seeds.
“What’s in this?” I asked.
“Vegetables.”
“Which ones?”
“Different things.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Daniel looked at me.
“Why are you suddenly so suspicious of everything?”
“Because you won’t tell me what you’re feeding me.”
He sighed.
“It’s good for you.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know.”
That answer only made things worse.
I began pretending to be tired.
Sometimes I told him I had already eaten.
Sometimes I claimed my stomach hurt.
But Daniel never accepted those excuses.
One evening, I pushed the bowl away.
“I’m not eating this.”
He stared at me.
Then his voice became unusually calm.
“Please don’t make this difficult.”
“Make what difficult?”
He said nothing.
“Daniel, what are you doing?”
He looked toward the curtains.
Then toward the kitchen.
Finally, he said quietly:
“Just trust me.”
“Trust you?”
“Yes.”
“Then tell me what’s in the soup.”
He remained silent for several seconds.
“What your body needs.”
That sentence stayed in my mind all night.
What your body needs.
Why did he say it like that?
What did he think my body needed?
The next morning, I woke up exhausted.
I had been feeling tired for weeks.
At first, I blamed stress.
Then I blamed work.
Then I blamed poor sleep.
But it seemed to be getting worse.
I would walk up the stairs and feel strangely weak.
Sometimes I became dizzy when I stood up too quickly.
I had also noticed that I was unusually pale.
Daniel noticed too.
“You look tired,” he said one morning.
“I’m fine.”
“You should rest.”
“You should tell me what you’re doing.”
He looked away.
That afternoon, while Daniel was in the shower, I noticed his jacket hanging beside the door.
I don’t know why I checked the pocket.
Maybe fear had already taken control of me.
My fingers found a folded receipt.
I pulled it out.
It was from a medical center.
The date was from several weeks earlier.
I read the name.
Then the address.
Then the amount paid.
My heart began beating faster.
Why had Daniel gone to a medical center without telling me?
I waited for him to come out of the bathroom.
“Daniel?”
“Yes?”
“Where were you last Tuesday?”
He froze.
“Why?”
“I found this.”
I held up the receipt.
For a moment, I thought he might finally tell me everything.
Instead, he took it from my hand.
“It’s nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“It’s personal.”
“You’re my husband.”
He didn’t answer.
That night, I noticed something else.
His phone.
Daniel had always left it on the table.
Now he kept it in his pocket.
Every time I entered the room, he turned the screen away.
I also discovered that his internet search history had been completely erased.
Not once.
Not twice.
Every day.
It was as if he didn’t want me to know what he was researching.
Then came the night that truly frightened me.
I woke up sometime after three in the morning.
The bedroom was dark.
Daniel was standing beside the bed.
Completely still.
He was looking directly at me.
I stared at him.
“What are you doing?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
“Daniel?”
“I’m just checking on you.”
“Checking on me?”
“Go back to sleep.”
But I couldn’t.
Because I suddenly realized something.
He wasn’t checking whether I was asleep.
He was checking whether I was breathing.
