The 3:00 AM Habit
I woke up in the middle of the night — my husband was not in bed. The clock said 3:12 am I checked the kitchen — empty. Then the front door opened, and he walked in. “Where were you?” I asked. “TAKING OUT THE TRASH.” “AT 3 AM?” I was stunned. “Yes,” he said.
It was obvious he was lying. I looked under the sink. The trash was gone. I had nothing. The next night, I pretended to sleep trying to catch him but dozed off. Morning came — trash was gone again.
So, the night after that, I set an alarm for 3:00 am I woke up — his side of the bed was cold. I stepped outside and froze when I saw him.
He wasn’t at the curb. He was at the edge of the woods behind our house, illuminated by the neighbor’s floodlight. He was not carrying our kitchen bag; he was dragging a heavy, industrial-sized black liner from the trunk of his car.
I watched, paralyzed, as he heaved the bag into a deep trench I hadn’t noticed before. He stopped, wiped his brow, and looked directly toward the bedroom window. I ducked, my heart hammering against my ribs.
The next morning, I waited until he left for work. I grabbed a shovel and ran to the spot in the woods. I expected something grizzly — something from a nightmare. But as I unearthed the bag and tore it open, I found only old clothes, broken trinkets, and framed photos.
They weren’t mine. They were his. Everything from his life before we met was being discarded, piece by piece, every single night.
I heard a twig snap behind me.
“I told you, honey,” his voice whispered right in my ear. “I was just taking out the trash. I wanted to be a brand-new man for you.”
He held out his hand, his eyes void of any emotion. “Now, what are we going to do about the mess you just made?”
