Relationship Crossroads

She sent a photo of a key in her hand. Not a fancy key — a plain one with a tag from a hardware store on the ring, and behind it a door with paint that didn't match the frame.

Sunday, seven o'clock, the phone propped against a water glass on their kitchen table so I get the ceiling for the first thirty seconds.

I tidy the apartment on Wednesdays. Not clean — tidy. The specific version where you move one thing off a chair and straighten a rug, as if a room could be prepared.

I've known for about six months. Not all at once — the way you know a tooth is going to need work, in increments, each time you decide not to think about it.

Two years. I've met his friends, his colleagues, the guy he plays football with on Thursdays. I have not met a single member of his family.

Four years together. One conversation that keeps happening and never lands.

Three years together. We split rent evenly because that felt fair when we moved in, and we've never revisited it. We split dinners. We split trips. It works, and it's a small point...

He asked me in a text that started with "so this is awkward." His lease had ended badly, the sublet he'd lined up fell through, and he needed somewhere for a few months. I read it ...

Our lease ends in four months, the rent went up again, and my partner's parents have a lower floor with its own entrance that they've offered us twice.

Two weeks ago my friend asked me, in a car, in the specific tone people use when they've been waiting for the right moment: "You've been quiet about him. What do you actually think...