It’s April 2020. We are in lockdown. As flatmates, this is a kind of intimacy we have not planned for. There is no office to escape to, no cleaning service, no food delivery. So you and I fall into a rhythm of housekeeping. Our third flatmate cannot cook so you cook lunch and I, dinner. You cook chicken everyday because you hate chopping vegetables. I call my mother every evening and follow her instructions, hoping to conjure familiarity. We take turns cleaning the never ending dishes.

Work hasn’t stopped. I walk through the house taking calls. Sitting in my room all day is driving me insane. My walking through the house is driving both of you insane. So one day you decide to tell me. “There is nowhere for us to go. You have such a loud voice. It is annoying.”

“What can I do about my voice? I am doing so much around here. How can you nitpick this?” We go back and forth like this. And it escalates.

I go crying into my room. The two people in the world that are stuck with me, hate me. I am pacing, trying to calm myself down. This fight has pushed me over the edge. The edge I have been hanging on to, with my last thread of sanity, since lockdown began. I feel claustrophobic and I want to leave. I call my brother, crying. He assures me that if I need it, he can figure out how to come pick me up. As I finish talking to him, I see your text. “I am sorry. It became bigger than it needed to. We will figure it out. Want to go for a walk?”

This swift de-escalation is new to me. You and I weren’t in love yet. But I loved you that day. For not letting me suffer. For keeping it easy.

In the past, I would date men I moderately liked, believing it was the best I could do. They would be silent for several days after a fight. When I eventually said sorry, I had lost. Blame had been apportioned. There was a politics to love that was tiring. They would want success for me, but not too much. They would be generous, but not too much. Everything was measured, given as deserved. Including apologies.

You and I are not like that. We don’t stonewall and we say sorry first. We are looking for love, not victory.

Two years later, the day we get married, I have no nerves. It is the easiest decision I have ever made.