Three days ago, my bathroom started leaking.
It wasn’t dramatic at first. Just a slow, steady drip that sounded louder because the house was so quiet.
The kind of quiet that presses against your ears when you’re alone too long. It was almost midnight, and Benjamin wasn’t home—again. The silence he left behind felt heavier than the water falling from the pipe.
Three days ago, my bathroom started leaking.
The pipe was hidden in the corner under the sink, awkward and stubborn. I shoved a towel under it. Then another. The towels soaked through fast, like they were giving up on me. I opened Google.
Then YouTube. Then somehow ended up on a Reddit thread where someone named PipeWitch1979 swore that wrapping a leaking pipe in an old bedsheet and duct tape would fix everything.
I stared at my phone and muttered,
“Sounds like… science. Let’s do it, Simone.”
I wrapped the pipe. I taped it tight. I waited.
It still leaked.
“Let’s do it, Simone,” I said again, trying to sound brave.
My husband would have fixed it. Benjamin always did. He fixed things quickly, calmly, without making me feel silly for not knowing how. He never complained. He never asked for praise.
But Benjamin was somewhere over the ocean again. Sydney. Singapore. Somewhere with a hotel room and bad Wi-Fi excuses. He had stopped correcting me months ago.
I called him anyway.
Straight to voicemail.
“Come on, Ben,” I whispered. “Where are you when I need you most?”
But Benjamin was somewhere over the ocean again.
So I texted him instead.
“Bathroom’s leaking again, Ben. Miss you. Can’t wait for you to come back home soon.”
He didn’t read it.
The drip got faster. Louder. Meaner.
Desperate, I did something I had never done before. I opened the building chat.
“Hi, it’s Simone! Is anyone awake and familiar with plumbing? I have a leak and it’s getting worse.”
I stared at the screen, feeling ridiculous.
Then my phone buzzed.
“I can come up, Simone. No worries. What number are you again?”
Jake.
Jake from the second floor. I’d seen him maybe four or five times in the elevator. Tall. Broad shoulders. Always quiet. Always wearing long sleeves, even in summer heatwaves. The kind of man who looked like he only spoke when it mattered.
“Third floor, door 9. Thank you, Jake! I really appreciate it.”
He arrived in under ten minutes. He carried a black tool kit and gave a single nod as he stepped inside. No small talk. No awkward smiles. He walked straight into the bathroom, knelt down, 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 silently, focused, like the world made sense when things were broken and fixable. The intensity of it made me feel strange. Small. Seen, somehow. Like I’d forgotten what it felt like for someone to take a problem seriously.
Fifteen minutes later, the leak was gone.
Just like that. As if it had never existed. As if the dripping 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. I didn’t ask why. I didn’t ask anything.
He left.
And he forgot his pliers on the bathroom counter.
The next morning, I found them beside the sink. Heavy. Worn. Clearly used many times before. I picked them up and held them longer than I should have.
They didn’t belong there.
But lately… neither did I.
I meant to return them right away. I really did. But I waited. Something about that night stayed with me. It wasn’t just the leak. It was Jake’s presence. The way he helped without making me feel helpless.
It made me realize something quietly painful.
I had stopped expecting help.
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.”
“Oh, 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 the neighbor’s name. I didn’t mention the pliers still sitting on our counter. I didn’t ask if he’d read my text from three nights ago.
And I definitely didn’t ask if he still missed me.
That afternoon, I finally picked up the pliers, slipped on my sandals, and walked down two flights. Jake’s door was slightly open. I hesitated, then knocked.
The door opened wider.
Inside, I saw everything.
A framed photo turned facedown. A pale pink cardigan draped over a chair. A mug filled with hair ties. A silver ring resting beside a melted white candle.
My knees went weak.
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 asked. “What does what mean?”
“I don’t know,” I said breathlessly. “I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t know what I’m doing. I haven’t felt like myself in months. And then you showed up and fixed something I couldn’t, and now I’m standing here losing my mind because I saw a ring in a dish.”
I whispered,
“Why am I the only one falling apart? And why do I feel safer in your hallway than I do in my own marriage?”
Jake didn’t try to fix me. He just stepped aside.
“Come in, Simone.”
I sat on the edge of his couch, shaking. The apartment smelled faintly of orange peel and old coffee. It felt paused. Like time had stopped there.
“I’m not okay,” I said.
“I know.”
“I think Benjamin’s seeing someone else,” I whispered. “Or maybe he’s just… gone.”
Jake nodded.
“I used to live with someone too,” he said quietly. “She died. Car accident. She was 31.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t think my husband is going to leave me,” I said. “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 me.
“I just want someone to stay,” I said.
We talked for a long time. About loss. About silence. About shrinking.
“You’re still someone who wants to be seen,” he told me. “You’re here.”
“Then why do I feel visible only when something breaks?”
“Because you’ve spent too long making yourself small.”
When I left, the light outside was golden.
“At least thank you for saving my bathroom,” I said.
“If you fall apart,” he replied, “you can sit here again.”
“Why?”
“Because no one should come back to themselves alone.”
Upstairs, the apartment was dark. Honest.
My phone buzzed.
“Flight delayed again. I’ll keep you posted.”
I turned it face down.
“What does it all mean?” I whispered.
And for the first time, I wasn’t afraid of the answer.
Maybe it meant I was allowed to want more.
And maybe… that was enough.