I’m watering the Charlie Brown tree because I have love to give and nowhere meaningful to dump it. This tree needs me. I’ll feed him and sweep away his dead needles and he’ll grow to be the best and biggest tree in the yard. He’ll give pollination-birth to a hundred new trees, which I’ll string with tinsel. He’ll be the patriarch and general of my new tree army.

His name is Jason. Right now he’s my number one priority on this earth.

Nicholas watches me closely as I pat Jason and murmur affirmations. I’ve heard from science that it helps the plants if you talk to them.

When I’m certain Jason is taken care of, I march up to the house. I haven’t even taken off my shoes when Nicholas starts in on me.

“There’s a difference between being needed and wanted. In some things, I like to be needed. With sex, I need to be wanted. I can’t be just some guy in your bed getting the job done. I’m not having disconnected, going-through-the-motions sex with you. Not you. You’re supposed to be the person I connect with the most deeply.”

“We do connect.” Oh god, is that my voice? I sound so blah. My lying skills are taking a beating from all the brutal honesty we’ve been engaging in the past few days.

“You stopped seeing me, Naomi. You stopped wanting me. You’re going to figure out one of these days that I can tell when you’re starting to disassociate, and it’s the most heartbreaking experience I’ve ever had. It’s nonstop. It keeps on happening. I try to bring you back to me every time you go to leave, off into your own head where I’m not allowed.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I feel deeply uncomfortable, and the intensity with which he’s speaking makes my skin burn hot.

Nicholas continues as though I never interrupted. “I can’t be intimate with you when you disassociate because I can’t let that become our new normal. But being distant from you as punishment for being distant from me doesn’t seem to motivate you to change. So I don’t know where that leaves us. All I know is that it’s a bad idea to fulfill your physical needs if you won’t fulfill my emotional ones.”

I’m not going anywhere near the subject of emotional needs. I cross my arms and rush straight to the defensive. “Motivate me to change how? What exactly would you like for me to change about myself, Nicholas?”

I can see he’s shutting down. Of course, now that he’s said his piece he wants to turn tail and flee, but I’m not letting him.

“I just want you to care about me,” he implores, gesturing with both hands to the space between us. “I want you to listen. I want you to give a shit about my feelings.”

Guilt knocks at my door, one single tap, before I remember what we were originally arguing about: Him going behind my back to buy a house. Him low-key resenting me because he didn’t take a job offer in Madison, assuming it was a no-brainer that I give up my job here in deference to his superior profession and superior goals. Him showering his heinous mother with gifts while neglecting me, and never taking my job or my friends seriously, and not standing up for me when his friends and family belittle me. This man gazing into my eyes with such torment, who looks so genuinely aggrieved, has been pushing me to leave him for months.

He’s reframed the dialogue to make me the bad guy, and I almost tripped and fell for it.

“Two can play it that way,” I hiss. “You think there aren’t any changes I’d make to you?”

He flinches. “What changes?”

“Figure it out,” I say, turning and heading up the stairs to the right-hand bedroom. I’ve given him the box spring and directed the mattress to what will be my bedroom for the duration of my visit. “You have until January twenty-sixth.”

It’s Sunday, the worst day of the week. Or it used to be the worst; now Sundays are the perfect opportunity to rub my hands together and see how far I can push the Roses. Sunday is the new birthday.

It’s not bragging to say that my next move is a masterpiece. I check the clock and count forty-five minutes until my grand reveal. Forty-five long, excruciating minutes in what’s been the slowest day on record. It’s getting hard to hold it in, especially since it’s no coincidence that my Steelers hoodie went “missing” during the move.

I don’t want him to expect what’s coming, so I’m generous with my smiles today. I slip Nicholas polite inquiries, pleases, and thank-yous like Trojan horses. This might have backfired on me, because he looks more suspicious than ever and all his suspicion has put him in a bad mood.

“You’re still in pajamas,” he tells me. I check the clock again. Forty-three minutes to go. If time were moving any slower, it would be going backward.

“So? I’ve got time.”

“So, we’re meeting my parents at the restaurant in forty-five minutes—”

“Forty-three.”

“—And it takes you an hour to get dressed. Simple math, Naomi.”

It takes fifteen minutes to get dressed, if I haven’t already picked out an outfit. It takes another fifteen minutes to do my hair, followed by fifteen minutes for makeup. Then I have to account for other last-minute stuff like tweezing my eyebrows or clipping my nails. Switching out snagged pantyhose. Foraging for a missing shoe. Getting ready takes an hour. Getting ready encompasses more than the simple act of pulling on clothing.

I decide to be offended. It’s been a while, and it’s so much fun, so I guide him in the right direction to give me some material I can misconstrue. “It’s fine, I’ll just throw on a sweater and pants a few minutes before we leave.”

“You’re not going to take forever to do your hair and makeup?”

Perfect. Thank you, Nicholas, you’re such a dove. “You think I need makeup, then?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“You’re implying that I’m not presentable in public unless I have a full face of makeup on.”

“No. I absolutely did not imply that.”

“I suppose I should take three hours to curl my hair, too, right?” I make my voice tremble. I am the victim of horrendous misdeeds. “Because I’m not pretty enough the way I am? I suppose you’re embarrassed to bring me around your family unless I conform to society’s impossible beauty standards for females?”