I didn't tell Marissa how often I returned to that photograph. I didn't want to make her feel guilty every time she opened her camera roll. I also didn't want to become a collector of grievances, saving each disappointment until I could produce it in an argument. I wanted her to understand without needing a file of evidence, which is perhaps why I let the file grow so large inside my head.
By the time our second anniversary approached, I was already tired in a way sleep couldn't fix. I still loved her, still believed there was a version of us worth protecting, and still thought the right conversation might turn things around. That's why I booked the restaurant where we'd had our first real date and found tickets to a band she'd played in the car for months. I didn't need some grand romantic gesture to save us. I wanted one evening when we belonged to each other without asking four other people whether it was convenient.
The tickets were harder to get than I expected. The band was playing a small theater rather than an arena, and seats sold out quickly to people who had been following them since their first album. I checked the website during a lunch break, refreshed through a queue, and bought two seats near the center with money I'd set aside from my last paycheck. Marissa had once said hearing that band live would be worth every terrible concert she'd attended in college, and I pictured her face when I handed her the envelope.
I also called the restaurant myself instead of relying on an online reservation. The host remembered us, or at least claimed to, and agreed to request the small table near the window where we'd sat on our first date. I asked about the timing because the concert began later that night, and the host assured me we'd have enough time if we arrived promptly. For the first time in weeks, planning something with Marissa made me happy without a second feeling underneath it.
There was another memory I had not told anybody about, one I kept sliding away from because it made me uncomfortable with how much I had accepted. Three months earlier, my mother underwent surgery that we had known about for several weeks. It wasn't an emergency by the time the day arrived, but the procedure was important, and the hours before the surgeon updated us were long. I told Marissa I'd be at the hospital through the afternoon and asked whether she might stop by when she got off work.
She said she'd try. At six, when my mother was awake and uncomfortable and my father was searching for a vending machine that would accept his dollar bill, I texted to ask whether she was coming. Marissa replied that the squad had its weekly game night and she was already there. She added that Mom was in good hands and she'd come another day, as if I had asked her to supervise medical care rather than stand beside me for an hour.