"After what?" I asked at last.
Marissa frowned. "Don't be dramatic. I'm saying my friendships are permanent."
"And what am I?"
She stared at me, clearly frustrated that I wanted an answer in a conversation she thought should already be finished. "You're my boyfriend. I love you. Why do you have to make everything into a test?"
I looked at the tickets still folded in my pocket. I had imagined surprising her and watching her eyes light up, and now the paper felt absurdly heavy. I wasn't upset because Tasha had friends or because birthdays mattered; I was upset because the relationship Marissa and I had built was being treated as the one commitment that could be moved whenever something shinier came along. I told her I needed time to think, and she replied that I should take all the time I wanted as long as I didn't punish her for having a life.
I went for a walk before either of us said something worse. The sky had finally opened, and the sidewalks were wet enough to reflect the green traffic lights at the intersection. I walked past the theater where the band would play, then turned around without meaning to, taking the same streets back toward our neighborhood. Every storefront window showed a tired man who had dressed for an ordinary weekday and somehow arrived at the end of a future.
My phone buzzed while I stood beneath the awning of a closed pharmacy. Marissa had sent a message saying she didn't want us to fight and that we could celebrate on Sunday after everybody recovered from the party. Below it were three pictures in the group chat she'd forwarded by mistake, showing Tasha's suggested outfits and a vote on which rooftop bar had the best lighting. I stared at the pictures for a long time before I put my phone away.
That night, I lay beside Marissa while she slept, listening to the pipes in the wall. It would have been easy to roll toward her, let her put an arm around me, and take the warmth as proof that everything would work out. I had done that before, and for a while it always felt like repair. But comfort and change aren't the same thing, and I was beginning to understand the difference.
The next morning, I left a note saying I was getting coffee and drove to a place across town where the tables were too small and the music was quiet. I opened the rental listings I had saved in passing during previous difficult weeks, telling myself I was only looking. One apartment was twenty minutes away, close enough to work but far enough that I wouldn't have to pass our building every day. The photographs showed bright windows, a narrow kitchen, and a room I could imagine making mine without asking whether the squad needed it for anything.