Three days ago, my bathroom started leaking.
It wasn’t dramatic at first. Just a slow, steady drip coming from the pipe under the sink. Drip. Pause. Drip again. The kind of sound you only notice when the house is too quiet.
And the house was very quiet.
It was just before midnight. The lights were low. The walls felt bigger than usual. And I was painfully aware of the silence Benjamin had left behind—again.
Three days ago, my bathroom started leaking.
The pipe was tucked into the far corner under the sink, hard to reach, like it was hiding. I shoved an old towel underneath it. Then another one. The towels soaked through faster than I expected.
I grabbed my phone and did what everyone does when something breaks: I searched Google. Then YouTube. Then, somehow, I ended up on a strange Reddit thread at 12:37 a.m., where a user named PipeWitch1979 confidently suggested wrapping a leaking pipe with an old bedsheet and duct tape.
I stared at my screen and muttered,
“Sounds like… science. Let’s do it, Simone.”
I wrapped the pipe. I taped it tightly. I waited.
It still leaked.
I sighed and said again,
“Let’s do it, Simone,”
like encouragement might somehow make it work.
My husband would’ve fixed it.
Benjamin would’ve done it quickly, calmly, without complaining and without making me feel silly for not knowing how. He always used to say, “It’s fine, Sim. I’ve got it.”
But Benjamin was somewhere over the ocean again.
This time it was Sydney. Or Singapore. Or maybe somewhere else entirely. He’d stopped correcting me months ago, like the details no longer mattered.
I called him anyway.
Straight to voicemail.
“Come on, Ben,” I muttered, staring at the dripping pipe. “Where are you when I need you most?”
But Benjamin was somewhere over the ocean again.
So I texted him.
“Bathroom’s leaking again, Ben. Miss you. Can’t wait for you to come back home soon.”
The message sent.
It stayed unread.
I waited. Then waited some more.
Nothing.
Desperate, tired, and more overwhelmed than I wanted to admit, I did something I had never done before.
I posted in the building chat.
“Hi, it’s Simone! Is anyone awake and familiar with plumbing? I have a leak and it’s getting worse.”
I didn’t expect an answer.
But a few minutes later, my phone buzzed.
“I can come up, Simone. No worries. What number are you again?”
It was Jake.
Jake from the second floor.
I’d seen him maybe four or five times total. Mostly in the elevator. Tall. Broad shoulders. Always wearing long sleeves, even during heatwaves. He didn’t smile much. He didn’t talk unless he needed to.
Jake looked like the kind of man who stayed quiet until something mattered.
“Third floor, door 9. Thanks, Jake! I really appreciate it.”
He arrived in less than ten minutes, carrying a black tool kit. He nodded once when I opened the door and stepped inside without hesitation.
No small talk.
No awkward smiles.
He walked straight into the bathroom, crouched down, found the leak, and got to work.
When I asked if he needed anything, he said,
“No. Just space.”
When I offered him tea, he shook his head.
He worked with a focus I hadn’t seen in years. Not in Benjamin. Not in anyone. It made me feel strangely small—but also seen. Like maybe I’d forgotten what it felt like to be taken seriously.
Fifteen minutes later, the leak was gone.
Completely gone.
As if it had never existed. As if the whole thing had been something I imagined out of loneliness.
Jake stood up, wiped his hands on a cloth, and finally spoke.
“If it drips again, call me. Not the landlord. That’ll take too long. And I know what I’m doing.”
I didn’t ask how he knew.
I didn’t ask why he was so sure.
Then he left.
And he forgot his pliers on the bathroom counter.
The next morning, I found them by the sink. Heavy. Scratched. Clearly well-used. Tools that had fixed more than one emergency.
I picked them up and held them longer than I should have.
They didn’t belong here.
But lately, neither did I.
I meant to return them right away. Truly. But I didn’t. Something about that night stayed with me. It wasn’t just the leak. It wasn’t just the quiet.
It was Jake.
The way he helped without judging. Without asking what I had tried. Without making me feel foolish.
It made me feel something I couldn’t name.
Not attraction.
Not longing.
Something quieter.
Maybe it was the realization that I had stopped expecting anyone to help me at all.
Three days later, Benjamin finally called.
His voice was cheerful, tired, distracted.
“Flight got delayed again, Sim,” he said. “You good?”
“The bathroom’s fine now.”
“Great. You fixed it yourself? Well done.”
“No,” I said softly. “I asked a neighbor for help.”
There was a pause.
“That’s… nice of them.”
That was it.
I didn’t tell him Jake’s name.
I didn’t mention the pliers still on our counter.
I didn’t ask if he’d read my message.
And I didn’t ask if he still missed me.
That afternoon, I finally grabbed the pliers, slipped on sandals, and walked down two flights of stairs.
Jake’s door was slightly open.
I hesitated. Then knocked lightly.
The door opened wider.
Inside, I saw everything.
A framed photo turned facedown.
A pale pink cardigan on a chair.
A mug full of hair ties.
A silver ring next to a melted white candle.
The room felt frozen in time.
My knees went weak before my mind caught up.
The pliers slipped from my hands and hit the floor.
Jake stepped into view.
“Simone?” he asked. “What’s going on?”
The words spilled out before I could stop them.
“What does it all mean?!”
“What?” he blinked. “What does what mean?”
“I don’t know,” I said, breathless. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I haven’t felt like myself in months. And then you fixed something I couldn’t, and now I’m standing here losing my mind because I saw a ring.”
I whispered,
“Why am I the only one falling apart? And why do I feel safer here than in my own marriage?”
Jake didn’t try to fix me.
He stepped aside and said quietly,
“Come in, Simone.”
I sat on the edge of his couch, shaking. His apartment smelled like orange peel and cold coffee. It felt paused.
“I’m 33,” I said. “And I still fold my husband’s laundry like he’s going to notice.”
Jake finally spoke.
“When did you start feeling this way?”
“I think he’s seeing someone else,” I said. “The absences feel… full.”
“I used to live with someone too,” Jake said.
“The woman in the photo?”
He nodded.
“She died. Car accident. She was 31.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t think Benjamin’s leaving me,” I whispered. “But he already has.”
Jake sat across from me.
“Sometimes people don’t leave because they don’t care,” he said. “They just don’t know how to stay.”
That broke something open inside me.
“I just want someone to stay,” I said.
We talked. About life. About loss. About being seen.
“You’re here,” Jake said. “That means something.”
When I stood to leave, the light outside had turned golden.
At the door, I said,
“Thank you for fixing my bathroom.”
“I know,” he replied. “But if you fall apart again, you can sit here.”
“Why?”
“Because no one should have to come back to themselves… alone.”
I walked upstairs slowly.
My phone buzzed.
“Flight’s delayed again. I’ll keep you posted.”
I put it face down.
“I don’t think I know how to come back from this,” I whispered.
But something inside me didn’t flinch anymore.
Maybe that meant I was finally asking.
And maybe, for the first time in a long while, that was enough.