Saturday morning arrived with a quiet that didn’t feel restful. Aaron woke first, staring at the faint stripes of sunlight on the ceiling. He listened to Julia’s breathing beside him—slow, uneven, the kind that came after a week spent holding herself together with the thinnest thread.

He didn’t wake her. She needed sleep far more than he needed company.

He slipped out of bed, made coffee, and sat at the dining table with a stack of student essays. Normally he graded at school, but yesterday he didn’t have a moment to breathe, let alone sit down. Now the papers formed a small fortress in front of him.

Around ten, Julia emerged—hair tangled, eyes heavy, sweater thrown over the T-shirt she wore to bed.

“Morning,” she said, voice rough.

“Morning.” He smiled softly. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

“I barely slept,” she admitted. “Feels like my head never shut off.”

“Do you want coffee?”

She nodded, rubbing the back of her neck as she sat down. Aaron poured a cup for her. She held it with both hands, as though warming herself from the inside out.

For a few minutes, they just sat in silence. Not cold silence—just the heavy, tired kind.

“I was thinking,” Aaron began cautiously. “Maybe we could get out for a bit today. A walk. Clear our heads.”

Julia exhaled slowly. “I can’t. I have to finish the client drafts Melissa wants. And I should prepare for Monday’s check-in.”

“You’ve been working non-stop.”

“I don’t really have a choice.”

The sentence landed harder than she intended. Aaron looked down at his papers, jaw tightening slightly.

“Okay,” he said. “Then maybe later tonight?”

“Maybe,” she said, but her tone suggested she already knew she wouldn’t have the energy.

Aaron returned to his grading. Julia opened her laptop at the opposite end of the table. Their weekend began like that—two people sitting in the same room, each inside their own storm.

By noon, Julia’s inbox had filled again. Clients wanting updates. Management wanting control. Melissa forwarding threads with comments like *please address ASAP* and *client is nervous*. Julia rubbed her forehead, fighting off the headache building behind her eyes.

Aaron noticed.

“You should take a break,” he said.

“I can’t.”

“You’ve been staring at that screen for hours.”

“And you’ve been grading for hours,” she shot back before she could stop herself.

Aaron’s mouth pressed into a line. “I’m trying to get ahead so we can have part of the day to… I don’t know. Be normal.”

Julia regretted the snap immediately, but the apology wouldn’t come out. Everything in her felt stretched, brittle.

“I’m sorry,” she said finally, voice thin. “I just can’t think straight.”

Aaron nodded, but something in his expression dimmed slightly.

After lunch, Julia moved to the bedroom to work. She said it was for quiet, but the truth was harder—she didn’t want Aaron to see her overwhelmed again. She didn’t want to be the reason the apartment felt tense.

Aaron stayed in the dining room. He graded more papers, then tried prepping next week’s lessons. Concentration slipped away from him over and over. Every time he typed a sentence, he found himself thinking about the halted construction, the mortgage, the sinking number in their joint account.

At three, he checked on Julia.

She sat on the floor, back against the bed, laptop open beside a small pile of crumpled paper. The look on her face—tired, cornered, not crying but close—made his chest twist.

“How’s it going?” he asked gently.

Julia wiped under her eye even though it wasn’t wet. “Work is… work.”

“You sure you don’t want to step outside? Just for ten minutes.”

“I can’t,” she repeated. “If I stop now, it’ll all hit me at once.”

“It already is,” Aaron said softly.

Julia pressed her lips together. “Please don’t make me feel worse.”

Aaron swallowed. “I’m not trying to.”

“I know,” she whispered. “But everything you say feels like another thing I’m failing at. I don’t want to disappoint you.”

“You’re not disappointing me.”

She shook her head weakly. “I can’t think about us right now. I’m barely keeping myself from falling apart.”

The words hit him in a place he wasn’t prepared for. Not because she meant to hurt him—but because he knew she was telling the truth.

He nodded. “Okay. I’ll give you space.”

“Thank you,” she said, already turning back to her laptop.

Aaron walked out quietly, but the weight followed him.

The afternoon dragged. By five, the apartment felt like two separate worlds—Julia buried under work behind a half-closed door, Aaron pacing between tasks that wouldn’t stay in his mind long enough to finish.

He finally gave up and took a walk alone.

The air outside was crisp, the early spring chill biting at his fingers. He walked past small houses, some finished, some mid-construction. He paused in front of a house that actually had workers outside—hammers, cement mixers, voices shouting measurements over the noise.

For a second, he imagined what it would feel like for their house to have this kind of activity. Noise. Progress. Hope.

Instead, theirs sat silent somewhere across town, empty, stalled, swallowing money.

He shoved his hands into his pockets, feeling the sting in his chest rise.

When he returned home, Julia was still in the bedroom. Her laptop glow reflected off her face in the dim light.

Aaron leaned against the doorway. “Have you eaten anything?”

She shook her head. “Not hungry.”

“You should eat.”

“I said I’m not hungry.”

The edge in her voice made Aaron stop. He wasn’t angry—just hurt.

“Okay,” he said quietly. “I’ll make something in case you want it later.”

She didn’t respond.

He walked to the kitchen and cooked something simple. Pasta with olive oil and garlic. The scent filled the small apartment, warm and familiar.

He placed a bowl gently on the nightstand beside her—not close enough to interrupt, just close enough to show he was there.

Julia stared at it for several seconds before whispering, “Thank you.”

Aaron nodded and stepped out.

Night settled slowly, heavy and unkind. When Julia finally closed her laptop, her eyes burned and her shoulders throbbed from tension. She walked out to the living room where Aaron sat on the couch, grading again.

He looked up immediately. Not angry. Not annoyed.

Just tired in the same way she was.

“Hey,” he said softly.

Julia lowered herself onto the opposite end of the couch. “I’m sorry today was…”

“I know.”

She swallowed. “I didn’t mean to shut you out.”

“I didn’t mean to push.”

A fragile understanding settled between them. Not solved, but shared.

Julia leaned back against the cushion. “We’re off. Aren’t we?”

“A little,” Aaron admitted. “But we’re both exhausted. And scared. And trying.”

She nodded slowly. “I’m scared we’ll lose track of each other.”

Aaron’s voice was gentle. “We won’t. Even if our days look like this sometimes.”

Julia finally let her head fall sideways onto the cushion. “I miss when weekends didn’t feel like more work.”

Aaron let out a small, humorless laugh. “Yeah.”

They didn’t move closer. They didn’t fix anything.

But they stayed in the same room, breathing the same tired air, not turning away.

For now, that counted.

One day. One weekend. One step.

Still together.