I told her (how many times now?) that I hate when she rewinds time at the end of our arguments.

I hate having something to say, a grievance weighing down my gut, and I take a breath to tell her, to peel back the skin for what feels like the first time, and she already looks so damn tired. I’m fumbling for words while she’s refining strategies, spinning me like a combination lock, looking for the quickest way to talk me quietly into bed.

I tell her I hate it, and she thinks I just hate when I can tell. So she turns back time again and learns to lie a little better. But when she doesn’t look so damn tired, when she counts the beats between us so that our arguments have natural silences, not prophetic words shoving and trampling for space, then, impossible to please, maybe, I still have to wonder.

How many times have I told her I can’t do this anymore, only for her to take it back? I lie in bed with her and wonder if I really have work in the morning, or if our life together is just and always will be this night where she talks me into staying.