My roommate’s girlfriend stays over at our place quite often. When she uses our bathroom, she always leaves a clothespin on the showerhead. Every single time! I’m hesitant to ask her because we’re not close.

Why would anyone do that?

It’s one of those little things that starts to get under your skin. At first, I figured it was an accident. Maybe she was hanging a loofah or towel and just forgot to take it down. But no. She’d leave it on the showerhead, like a little wooden flag planted on conquered land.

Her name’s Imani. She’s been dating my roommate, Paolo, for almost a year now. She doesn’t live with us, but she practically camps out in our living room every other week. Don’t get me wrong—she’s polite, quiet, even offers to replace the oat milk without being asked. But we’ve never had a real conversation beyond “hey” and “have a good one.”

One Sunday morning, I stepped into the bathroom half-awake, turned on the shower, and noticed the clothespin again. Just sitting there like a sentinel. My curiosity had fully evolved into a private obsession by that point. I even started tracking it mentally. Monday: no Imani, no clothespin. Friday night: she’s here, clothespin appears Saturday morning. Every time she showered—clothespin.

I considered asking Paolo about it, but it felt… nosy? Like I’d be admitting how closely I’d been monitoring his girlfriend’s bathing habits. That’s weird, right? So I kept quiet.

Until one day, it went missing.

It was a Tuesday afternoon. Imani had come over the night before, and I was home early from work. She’d just finished showering when I noticed it wasn’t there. No clothespin. I peered inside the tub, scanned the corners. Nothing.

Huh.

That should’ve been the end of it. But that’s when I noticed something else. The water pressure was awful. Normally, our shower blasts like a pressure washer. But that day it came out like a leaky garden hose. Weak, sputtering. I cranked the handle, twisted the head, even tried letting it run. Still nothing.

Paolo got home later that night and tried it himself. Same result.

“Maybe it’s clogged,” he said. “I’ll pick up a new head tomorrow.”

We did. He installed it. Problem solved.

The clothespin never showed up again. For about three weeks.

Then—bam. It’s back.

One Saturday morning, I walk in to brush my teeth and there it is: the same old clothespin, clipped like a badge on the showerhead. I stared at it for so long my toothpaste foamed out of my mouth.

I took a photo this time. Then, in a move that still makes me cringe a little, I posted it in a group chat with my cousin Zari and our friend Maks.

“Okay, what the hell does this mean?” I wrote.

Maks joked, “She’s marking territory. Like a dog peeing on a fire hydrant.”

Zari, ever the practical one, said, “Maybe it’s to control the water? Like if the spray’s too strong or something?”

That gave me an idea.

Next time I saw Imani, I waited until Paolo left the room. I kept it casual.

“Hey, random question,” I said, pretending to clean up the kitchen. “That clothespin on the showerhead—what’s that for?”

She froze. Literally froze mid-reach for a glass of water. Then smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Oh… uh. Just a weird habit,” she said. “Forget I left it there.”

Then she changed the subject so fast I got whiplash.

That should’ve told me everything. But instead, it lit my curiosity on fire.

The next day, I did something I’m not proud of.

I snooped.

Okay—not full-on rummaging-through-drawers snoop. But I checked our bathroom carefully. I tried turning the shower on with the clothespin clipped in place, then again without it. I even held it under the water to see if it did anything. Nada. No difference in temperature or spray or pressure.

Still, Imani kept putting it there.

A few days later, Paolo was gone for a long weekend visiting family. I came home from work late Friday to find Imani sitting in our kitchen, drinking tea. Alone.

I almost turned around. But she looked up and smiled.

“Hey,” she said. “Want some?”

I nodded. Something about the quietness in her eyes softened me.

She poured me a cup, and we sat there awkwardly at first. She asked about my job. I asked how her week was. Slowly, the wall between us started to crack.

Then, after a long pause, she said, “You asked about the clothespin.”

I nodded, suddenly feeling like I’d trespassed.

She stared into her cup, then looked up.

“My dad used to do it.”

I blinked. “The clothespin?”

She nodded. “He was… sensitive to water pressure. Said it triggered his migraines. He figured out that clipping a pin to the head somehow reduced the angle of the spray. Probably placebo, honestly. But he swore by it.”

I sipped quietly, waiting.

“He passed last year,” she said. “The month I met Paolo. I guess I started doing it without thinking. Like muscle memory. It made me feel… I don’t know. Connected, I guess.”

I sat there, feeling like the world had shrunk. What I’d treated like a weird quirk or mystery was someone’s grief stitched into routine.

“I wasn’t trying to be weird,” she added, her voice soft. “I just didn’t want to explain it. Not to someone I barely knew.”

I felt like garbage. But also—oddly grateful she’d told me.

We talked for another hour. Not just about the clothespin, but her dad, her mom back in Trinidad, how hard it was to grieve in silence when you’re just the “girlfriend,” not family.

From then on, things changed.

I noticed the clothespin less and less—not because it disappeared, but because I stopped fixating on it. And every now and then, Imani and I would talk. She even showed me how to make her dad’s favorite curry one night, and we laughed about how Paolo couldn’t handle the spice.

Then came another twist I didn’t see coming.

Three months later, Paolo got laid off.

He didn’t take it well. He tried to pretend he was fine, but the guy stopped showering, eating, everything. He just sat around doom-scrolling and muttering about being “a failure.”

Imani tried to help, gently pushing him to apply elsewhere, offering to cover groceries. But he shut down. Then one night, he lashed out. Called her controlling. Said she was “too intense” and “trying to mother” him.

She left in tears.

He didn’t call her for days. I did.

“Come over,” I told her. “He won’t say it, but he needs you.”

She did. But things felt different after that.

Eventually, they broke up. Quietly. No yelling, no drama. Just two people sitting in our kitchen, deciding to stop trying.

Imani stopped coming around after that. But a few weeks later, I found something wedged behind the bathroom mirror.

The clothespin.

Only this time, there was a tiny note rubber-banded to it.

“If you ever feel overwhelmed, clip this on and breathe. It works. I promise. – I.”

I didn’t cry. But I sat down on the toilet lid and just… sat there. For a long time.

Over the next year, life kept spinning. Paolo moved out, got a new job in Denver. I stayed, got a new roommate. I kept the clothespin.

Not on the showerhead, though.

I hung it on a string above my bed. A tiny reminder that people carry invisible stories. That sometimes, the weirdest little habit is just someone trying to hold onto love in their own way.

I haven’t seen Imani in a long time. But every once in a while, I think of her dad, the migraines, and the clothespin. And I smile.

Because what started as a strange mystery turned out to be one of the quietest acts of love I’ve ever seen.

If something confuses you about someone, try asking before judging. There might be a reason that’ll change your whole perspective.

Like, share, or comment if this reminded you of someone. Maybe even someone you misunderstood.