But he had a way of reminding me that he knew Lauren differently. He would mention the nickname she had in college, then grin when I didn't recognize it. He sometimes told a story that ended with him saying, "You had to be there," and both of them would laugh before I had heard enough to understand why. I couldn't tell whether he was deliberately excluding me or simply careless. Lauren always treated it as harmless, and after a while I stopped asking her to explain the jokes.
About six months before the trip argument, we attended a birthday dinner for one of Lauren's friends. Chris arrived late and dropped into the chair beside her, even though there was an empty chair on my side of the table. While people ordered drinks, he began talking about a music festival in another state that he and Lauren had once attended. Lauren leaned toward him, animated and smiling, while I studied the menu and waited for a way into the conversation. On the drive home she asked why I had been so quiet, and I said I had felt like an extra in a story I was supposed to be helping write.
She seemed surprised, then irritated. "He's known me since college, Daniel. I can't rewrite my whole past just to make you comfortable." I told her that wasn't what I wanted, that I simply didn't enjoy being ignored while I sat beside my own fiancée. She said I was making a big deal out of a dinner and asked whether I planned to be jealous of every friend she had ever made. We spent the remainder of the drive listening to the tires hum over the highway.
A few days later she apologized, and I accepted it. She said Chris could be oblivious and that she would try harder to include me. I believed her because I wanted to, but also because the relationship had accumulated enough good memories that I didn't want to make one evening carry the weight of all of them. That's one of the complicated parts of being with someone for years. You learn to interpret a single disappointment inside the larger story of who you believe they are, and sometimes that perspective is generous while other times it becomes an excuse not to notice a pattern.
My work wasn't particularly forgiving during that period. A new customer account meant longer mornings and occasional weekends spent untangling problems that began at loading docks hundreds of miles away. Lauren had a demanding campaign at her company, and both of us were tired more often than we admitted. We began scheduling date nights the way I scheduled freight arrivals, placing them on a calendar and hoping nothing interrupted them. I told myself all couples experienced seasons like that, especially with a wedding approaching.