It was a Saturday in the early evening. I stood in front of the bathroom mirror and wrapped a tie around my neck: looped, wrapped, tucked, and tightened; I was satisfied with the knot's even plumpness. I folded the collar and returned to the bedroom. There, under the sheets like some sort of hibernating animal, Marla had taken off her dress and crawled into bed.

“What are you doing? We have to go.” She turned herself out from the pillow. Her mascara had run down her cheeks with a steady drip of tears. I sat on the edge of the bed, facing the two windows and the night time alleyway.

She talked into her pillow, “I’m sorry, I just can’t stop thinking about it.”

“Then don’t think about it,” I said. The room was bright, and I wished that it wasn’t, that we could remain in the dark and that our breaths could freeze holes into the white walls. The silence was unsettling. She didn’t say anything and my thoughts churned like a car stuck in snow; the engine turned and roared but the vehicle only spit up mud. “Fine, we won’t go. Just stay there, and we won’t go.” I slammed the door.

In the silence of the apartment, with only the soft hum of the refrigerator, empathy tempered my anger. She had locked the door. “Come on,” I said. “I’m sorry.” She didn’t respond. “Open the door. I want to talk about this,” I said. I knocked two more times.

I had, of course, no solid argument or reasoning as to why she should come out of the room and go on with the night with me as if nothing had happened. She was recounting decisions in her past, adding up tallies and counting shocks, trying to decide what exactly it means to love a person. And when, after all, to call it quits.

“It’s not fair to do this to me,” I said. Then she said the same thing. Only, she was right.