"You're wearing the anniversary dress," I said, and immediately regretted how it sounded. I meant that I remembered the evening we bought it, that seeing it brought back a version of us I still missed, and that I wondered whether it meant anything to her now. What came out sounded like an accusation about fabric, which was exactly the opening she needed to shift the argument away from everything else. "It's my dress," she answered, smoothing the hem with her palms. "I'll wear what I want."
I agreed that she could wear anything she liked. I told her the dress had simply surprised me because I thought she'd been saving it for a special occasion, and she gave me a look that suggested special occasions existed beyond our relationship. That was fair enough, and on another night I might even have laughed at myself for making too much of a garment. But the atmosphere between us was already charged with weeks of things we had failed to settle. I sat on the edge of the bed, not because I intended to interrogate her, but because my legs suddenly felt heavy.
"Is Mark going to be there?" I asked. It was the first direct question about him I had managed without burying it under a joke, and I felt the risk of asking it as soon as the words left my mouth. Chloe's hand stopped near her lipstick, and she met my eyes in the mirror instead of turning toward me. The pause lasted only a second, but there was enough time to imagine several different answers. None of them came.
"What about him?" she said, finally setting the lipstick down. I explained that I'd heard his name in the plans, that I'd noticed the private messages, and that the distance between us had made ordinary things difficult to interpret. I said again that I wasn't asking her to account for every minute or to hand over her phone. I wanted to know whether we were still being honest about the important parts of our lives.
She laughed, short and without amusement, as if I had delivered a line from a comedy she'd already seen too many times. "Oh, here we go. The Inquisition," she said, turning from the mirror. She leaned against the vanity, crossed her arms, and asked whether I planned to question every man she ever spoke to. I told her I didn't, and that the conversation wasn't about every man. It was about us and the way she seemed to be making a point of not including me in decisions that once belonged to both of us.
I can see, looking back, why the question about Mark sounded accusatory. When you feel insecure, even a question you think you're asking calmly can carry the weight of a dozen conversations the other person never agreed to have. I wasn't proud of every uneasy glance I had given her phone over those weeks. But I had tried to explain the insecurity instead of converting it into a demand, and I needed her to hear that difference. Chloe didn't seem interested in distinctions anymore.