At lunch I walked outside and called my friend Daniel, who had known me since college and had never much enjoyed dispensing relationship advice. He listened while I described the latest argument, asked two questions about what Chloe had actually said, and resisted my attempts to make him tell me she was obviously wrong. "You don't need to win a case against her to decide something isn't working," he said at last. "And she doesn't have to be unfaithful for you to need a different kind of relationship." I wanted to argue, because those words required me to make a decision instead of waiting for someone else to make it for me.
I asked him whether leaving would make me controlling in another way, as though ending a relationship were a punishment for someone else's independence. He said it would depend on whether I was leaving to force Chloe to change or leaving because I had accepted that she did not want the partnership I wanted. The distinction followed me back to the office and stayed there while I finished the day's work. I knew I had no right to choose her friends, dictate her clothes, or decide who she could text. I also knew I was entitled to decide whether I wanted to remain in a relationship that made me feel as though my needs existed only to be negotiated away.
By six, the sky outside the office windows had darkened from blue to the dull color of the approaching evening. I gathered my things, cleared the last email from my inbox, and sat in the car for a moment before starting the engine. Part of me hoped Chloe would greet me with a simple explanation, perhaps even say she wanted us to spend the evening together. Another part anticipated the familiar cycle of questioning, defensiveness, apology, and temporary calm. I didn't know which part to trust, so I drove home and decided to speak plainly without rehearsing a verdict.
When I opened the apartment door, the smell of hairspray reached me before Chloe did. A small collection of makeup brushes lay across the bathroom counter, and the bedroom light was on even though there was still some daylight outside. She was standing in front of the full-length mirror in the black anniversary dress, studying the angle of her shoulders as she put on a second earring. The dress still fit her beautifully, and for one disorienting second I saw the woman stepping out of a boutique dressing room while rain hissed against the glass. Then her phone lit up, and she smiled at whatever appeared on its screen without looking in my direction.
I put my work bag beside the dresser and asked where she was going. "Out with the girls," she said, watching herself apply lipstick. "I told you earlier this week." She had mentioned that Jess wanted to go out, but she hadn't said Thursday was settled or that it would involve the place Mark apparently knew. I considered correcting the detail and decided it wasn't the point; we had already spent too much of our relationship litigating who had said what and on which day.