It was an awkward dinner, and the mood of the room was tense. Silence enveloped the entire dining room with the exception of the shiny, metal silverware softly clanking on the glass plates. Mira was glaring at Harriet from the other side of the wooden table, a noticeable scowl on her face. Meanwhile, Harriet ate her plate of food quietly, glancing away from her angry wife while trying to focus on the cooking she missed so much. Of course she felt guilty for leaving Mira behind, but it had to be done.

“So…” Harriet began, pausing her words to chew and swallow some of the dinner before continuing, “What did I miss when I was gone?” She asked lightheartedly with a small, forced smile, hoping to somewhat ease the ambiance of the moment.

The glower on Mira’s face deepened at the question, her hand beginning to clutch the end of the wooden table with a tight grip.

“Do you really have the fucking audacity to ask me that?” Mira barked, her question making Harriet sigh.

“I was trying to start-“

“Just shut up and eat.”

It became quiet afterwards, and Harriet’s mind was racing with thoughts as she stared off to the muted-blue wallpaper. _“What do I even say to her if she clearly doesn’t want to talk to me?”_ She thought to herself before she cleared her throat and spoke again.

“Look, I get you’re angry at me, and you have every right to be upset…but I’m here now, and I really want to make it up to you. I-“

Before Harriet could finish her apology, Mira snapped and slammed her fists onto the table with a loud thud, the silverware clanking against the plates to the point where it was ear-splitting.

“You faked your death, left me alone for five fucking years in mourning, and now you decide to waltz back in here like nothing happened at all! How the hell am I supposed to accept your stupid apology when you left me?!” She retorted, and the fact that Mira brought up her “death” made Harriet wince.

“Yeah, but- I really had no choice, Mira. I was in danger.“

The woman tried to justify herself, keeping a calm, serious face so she wouldn’t make the conversation worse.

“So? You could’ve hidden here until it was okay! You didn’t have to leave me alone!”

Mira said angrily, her face flushed red and her hands on her hips.

“I’ve tried to tell you that you should’ve quit your job! I was trying to tell you that it’s too dangerous for you! None of this would’ve happened if you listened to me for once!”

The woman’s shoulders slumped when she noticed her wife’s expression, and she looked away as she yelled at her.

“I-I couldn’t quit that easily, and you know that. I’m not arguing about this anymore; I just want to move on from it and-”

“Do you really think I could forgive you so goddamn easily?!” Mira shouted, leaning forward and pointing a finger right in the woman’s face, “You’re lucky that I even let you back in my house and didn’t leave you to rot in the streets!”

_“Both of us know that you wouldn’t do that…”_ Harriet thought, slowly moving her hand to rub her neck with a small grimace as she let her wife continue her protest.

“Words literally can’t even describe how much you hurt me; you stabbed me in the damn back and like made me waste so much energy on you! The fact that you couldn’t even trust me enough to tell me that you were okay until now is such a shitty move on your part, Harriet!”

With tears that slowly formed in her eyes as she yelled and scowled with rage, Mira finally cracked. She stormed out of the dining room, stopping up the stairs before slamming her bedroom door.

“No, wait!-” were the only words Harriet could utter, but it was too late; she was gone.

Once again, there was a strained silence throughout the entire house, which allowed Harriet to recollect her thoughts. As she sat at the dining table alone with her head in her hands and a frown on her face, Harriet contemplated about how absolutely horrible she felt for what she had to make her wife endure, even though she was just trying to save herself from someone who was threatening to take her life away. She messed up, even though she had no choice but to lie and fake her death. Maybe Mira was right about her job being way too dangerous for her, yet there’s nothing she could do about it anymore.

_“What the hell am I supposed to do to make her feel better?”_ was the biggest question in her mind that kept repeating itself as she stared down at the table with empty eyes. Ultimately, she decided to give Mira some time to herself before speaking to her again.

About an hour later, Harriet wiped her hands off with the marshmallow white kitchen towel that hung from the oven handle, glancing around at the work she had done with a faint, hopeful smile. She had just finished cleaning the entire kitchen for her wife as a way to show that she’s does care about their relationship; It took her mind off of things for a while, and it filled her with a sense of nostalgia and bittersweet positivity to explore the home she hasn’t lived in in five years.

But then, the time had came, and with a deep breath, Harriet began to slowly climbed up the stairs, the boards creaking under her feet. Her hand was gripping onto the railing as her body tensed slightly, not knowing what to expect. Once she made it to her wife’s bedroom, she turned the doorknob and peeked her head in.

Mira’s head immediately turned to face the door when she heard it open, her teary, red eyes narrowing as she saw who was there.

“What the hell do you want?” She interrogated, shifting her seated position on her queen sized bed.

Harriet rubbed her arm and glanced away for a moment. “W-well, you know… I just wanted to tell you that I cleaned up the kitchen for you.” Harriet stuttered and sighed when she saw Mira roll her eyes, knowing that she had done the bare minimum for her wife’s forgiveness.

“You’re acting like I want you around right now.”

“Obviously you do, or else you wouldn’t have let me inside the house or fed me a dinner. And I really want to solve this damn problem already.” Harriet tried to sound firm, even though her mannersms weren’t matching with her tone at all. Getting irritated again, Mira started to retort.

“Oh my god, just shut-“

“Do you even want to save our marriage?”

When Harriet cut her wife’s words off, there was a a long silence that followed as Mira was thinking to herself, a tiny sniffle coming from her due to her previous tears. Just like Harriet, she had been pondering to herself about everything while sitting in her bedroom, analyzing how she felt when all of the initial anger and tears left her. Then, she decided to come clean…

“S- Yeah, I do, even though you make me so goddamn pissed, I’ll try to give you a second chance…”

With a bit of surprise, Harriet’s eyebrows raised, genuinely expecting this conversation to go south. Her mouth opened to speak, but then Mira talked over her.

“I want you to actually listen to me and communicate with me whenever something is wrong. You can’t just ditch me; like, the least you could’ve done was tell me that you had to fake your death and leave for a while.” She added, making Harriet nod with a tiny smile.

“Of course, I promise I won’t let you down again, okay?”

A skeptical sigh escaped Mira, but she nodded her head as well

“Okay, fine..”

Many months passed, the relationship between Harriet and Mira gradually healed, which took an enormous amount of effort. Their relationship was much more open than before, and as her old occupation still thought she was dead, she could find a new, safer one to support the two. Once their marriage was mostly mended, they lived together with contentment.