The Sunday rule had been her idea, and she’d enforced it more loosely than she’d intended, which was fine because the spirit of it had held even when the letter hadn’t.
The rule was: no planning on Sundays. No lists, no logistics, no decisions about the week ahead. Just — existing. Whatever that looked like.
Some Sundays it looked like very little. They’d stay in their pajamas past noon, drift separately around the apartment, reconvene at some point around food without having discussed food, end up on the couch watching something neither of them had particularly chosen.
Other Sundays it looked like walking somewhere without a destination, or cooking something elaborate simply because they wanted to, or one of them reading while the other organized something they’d been meaning to organize for months.
“I like Sundays,” Anders said now, from where he was lying with his head in her lap, not doing anything in particular.
“You say that every week,” Valentina said.
“It keeps being true.”
She looked down at him. He’d closed his eyes. The window light was doing something particular to the room — the exact quality of late afternoon in autumn, which she’d loved since childhood for reasons she couldn’t articulate.
She rested her hand on his chest and thought about the rule and how she’d underestimated it when she’d invented it. She’d thought she was protecting their weekends. She hadn’t understood she was protecting something more fundamental: the practice of existing together without an agenda. Without output. Without anything to show for it but the fact of being two people, unhurried, in the same light.
✦ Today’s Reflection
Is there a protected time in your relationship — a ritual, a rule, a standing arrangement — that exists specifically to give you both space to just be?
Love my writing? You can grab my books directly from my website or through my Amazon author page. When you purchase from my website, a larger portion of the sale goes directly to supporting my writing, allowing me to create more stories, mental health resources, and magical guides without relying on algorithms or advertising. You’ll also find exclusive bonuses, free reader gifts, and occasional special offers that aren’t always available elsewhere. If Amazon is your preferred bookstore, that’s perfectly fine too. Either way, thank you for supporting an independent author who spends an unreasonable amount of time talking to fictional people and turning it into books.
Leave a Reply