“I’m not sleepy tonight.”
He hesitated, eyes narrowing slightly.
“You’ll feel better if you drink it. Trust me.”
For the first time, I saw something cold behind his gentle expression.

The next morning, after he left for work, I checked the kitchen drawer. The bottle was still there — half full, with no label.
My hands trembled as I placed it inside a plastic bag and called my lawyer.
Within a week, I had opened a safety deposit box, moved my savings, and changed the locks on my beach house.
That evening, I sat Ethan down and told him what the doctor had found.
For a long moment, he said nothing. Then he sighed — not guilty, not sad, but as if I had ruined something he was carefully maintaining.
“You don’t understand, Lillian,” he said softly. “You worry too much, you think too much. I just wanted you to relax… to stop aging yourself with stress.”
His words made my skin crawl.
“By drugging me?” I asked. “By taking away my choice?”
He only shrugged, as if it was nothing serious.
That was the last night he ever slept in my home.
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