You Deserve Each Other (You Deserve Each Other, #1)

by Sarah Hogle

“Thanks for dinner!” I crow behind me. “Your adult son and I are so grateful!”

“For one, I hate this house.” My eyebrows arch so high, they nearly touch my bangs. “You picked it.”

It’s the future Mrs. Rose’s house, not mine. Which chafes a little. “I don’t want to live here.” He’s losing patience. “I don’t really care what you want, to be honest. I don’t like you again yet. But I’m going to. And you’re going to like me again, too. This house is going to save us.”

“Don’t let me die here. I want to be somewhere warm when I go.” “Yeah, better ease into those warmer temperatures. It’ll get a lot hotter once you arrive at your destination.”

“When Dave had his wisdom teeth removed, the first thing he said when coming out of anesthesia was ‘Don’t tell the dentist about Naomi’s car.’”

“I’d record their reaction on my phone. Messing with them could be fun, Naomi, if I were in on the joke, too. You forget, I know better than anyone what it feels like to be smothered by Deborah Rose.”

I’ve felt second place for a long time.” “I never wanted you to feel like that. But . . . you didn’t step up. You didn’t become my partner. You left me to fend for myself.” “Yeah, kind of like when your mother openly insults everything about me and you say nothing,” I say waspishly. “That sound she makes when I say yes to dessert. Tut-tut. Looking down on me because of where I work, and the fact that I only have a high school diploma. A million other things.”

“I see you’re still mad about the spaghetti thing.” “Not mad.” Just holding on to it forever. “Sure, sure.”

“My tongue is numb. Is that normal?” “I can taste this in my sinus cavities. Taste. Not smell.”

“We should mark today on the calendar and memorialize it by eating this travesty every year,” he remarks. “I’ll copy down the recipe. Cinnamon, bread crumbs with egg in them. God, did we really use coffee creamer?” “We’re artists. No one understands.”

How am I supposed to have a balanced breakfast tomorrow morning?” “You don’t deserve a balanced breakfast tomorrow morning! You can eat butterless toast and think about what you did.” His feet are cinder blocks as he marches off for his wallet and keys. I’m still frozen in surprise, half-standing, half-crouched. “But my nutrients!”

“Your first mistake was expecting me to be the bigger person,” I reply. “Deborah gives you shit twenty-four-seven and you shower her with attention. It gets results! You know what doesn’t get results? Being understanding all the time and saying ‘Whatever you need, babe. Walk all over me! Forget I’m even here.’ Being the bigger person gives you permission to put my feelings second every time. I have to be understanding. I have to be patient, and keep my mouth shut while you coddle her. So I’m going to change tactics, because continuing to do what I’ve been doing while expecting different results is stupid. Debbie’s playbook works. Being a whiny pain in the ass works. Maybe I should start calling the front desk, too.”

“Lie still!” I command. “I deserve to win this.” “You deserve tapeworms.”

“You bumped me into the wall on purpose.” “I did not, you little goblin.” I bounce up and down, which makes him wince. “You’re not a goblin, actually. You’re a changeling. You’ve taken over the body of that nice girl I met.” “Her name was Naomi, wasn’t it?” I say, tilting my head. “Too bad for her.” “Yes. Too bad for us both.” “You’ll never see her again.”

“You’re supposed to be pissed off, not turned on.” “I can be both. You’re not the boss of me.”

“Tell me you’re sorry and I’ll let you find out.” “Sorry for what?” “Your half.”

“My half,” I repeat, sitting up straighter. I feel him beneath me and it’s been so long; anything we’ve done in the last few months doesn’t count. The last time we had sex, the space between us was dead air, unbroken by any emotion whatsoever—not love, not attraction, not tension. Right now, two out of three ain’t bad. My body wants to trickle into liquid and spill forth all over him, but I venture to say, “Half of what?” “Of what went wrong.”

“We were never right to begin with.” He arches a brow. “No?” “No. Changeling Naomi is the same person as First Date Naomi, just with all the shiny new penny rubbed off. We got too used to the best version of each other, so neither of us ever got to relax and show our normal selves. We’ve been hiding.”

I strain to remember how I wound up sharing intimate space with this other human being. I think I remember a zing in my bloodstream, a click of magnets. Laughter. Hope. The beginnings are so sparkly, so effortless. You can imagine the other person to be whoever you want. In all the gaps of your knowledge about them, you can paint in whatever qualities you like as placeholders. You can paint the other person into a dream impossible for them to live up to.

I follow him to the door. It feels like he’s always leaving right when I want him to stay. When I need him here and he leaves, I lose something every time, over and over. He takes it from me when he goes. Always going. He’s never going to belong to me. He’s never going to want to stay with me. I’m never going to be enough. Even when we’re not together and I’m away doing something else, it bothers me when that rigid sense of duty to his parents snaps its fingers and off he goes running. It’s easier if I decide I don’t want him around, because then at least he can’t disappoint me.

“There’s no such thing as loving someone eighteen percent.” “Yes, there is. I’ve done the math.” “You can’t measure love.” His voice sharpens on the last word before twisting. There’s mockery running all through it now. “But if we’re going to play the numbers game, then I guess I would have to say that I tolerate you eighteen percent, Naomi.” “So you don’t love me, then.” “I didn’t say that.”

“What’s wrong?” “Nothing.” He doesn’t speak, but his gaze narrows. He’s got an ankle propped on his knee, fingertips drumming on the armrest of the couch. Nothing. It’s a self-appointed martyr’s answer. It ensures that the issue goes unresolved, and that I suffer all by myself. What do I get out of saying nothing?

“What are you going to do, Naomi?” There’s a frisson of anticipation and suspense in his tone; something that still hopes, in spite of our constant attacks. I reach for a sharp weapon but don’t find any. Facing him on our battlefield, I drop all my armor. “Cry,” I whisper. The strings of our reserve snap and he falls onto me, astride my lap, knees digging into the couch to support his weight. His fingers tangle in my hair and his lips find mine, soft and warm and inviting.

But I’m not blameless in all this. Just a couple of days ago, I filed a millimeter of wood off the leg of his desk so it would wobble. I’ve tried to drive him nuts on purpose, too.

I run to my bedroom, conscious of him watching me all the way up the stairs. Again, it’s like I’m moving underwater, under his microscope, Nicholas’s clever brain decoding messages I’m unknowingly sending with my gait, how far apart my fingers are splayed, the color in my cheeks. It’s never been so obvious that he can see right through me. The question is: how long has he been looking?

When’s the last time I thanked him for that? When’s the last time I noticed he even did these little things for me and didn’t simply take them for granted?

He shouldn’t be this stunned by a nice gesture. It should be a given, but it’s not, and that’s my fault. I’ve been withholding nice gestures to punish him for not giving me enough nice gestures, and just look at how well that attitude’s panned out for us.

He’s rearranged it: taken out the TV and relocated his desk to a different wall. My desk is in here, too, flush with his rather than squashed into a drafty living room corner. It doesn’t resemble his personal office anymore, but a shared space. My shoes stacked beside his. My candles. His model train. His filing cabinet. My bookshelf, with a blend of my fiction and his non, his collection of fountain pens and my menagerie of Junk Yard curiosities. A marriage of personalities.

It’s my turn to be speechless. He smiles, and I think he likes doing this, too. Shocking me with an act of goodness.

When I pass his door, I reach out on impulse and touch the knob. I turn it—just to check—and find it locked. I’m not sure I’d go inside, if given the chance. I can’t blame him for protecting himself from me because I’ve been doing the same, but right now our system of measure-for-measure doesn’t infuriate or energize me. It disappoints, cutting deeper than any insult.

“Thanks. You shouldn’t have.” “Yeah, well. Thought it’d be nice.” “I really don’t need flowers.” His stare is a death sentence. “Never mind,” I’m quick to add. “I still want them sometimes, probably.”

Imagine how it’ll look when the dress doesn’t fit right.” “The dress is made to fit Naomi,” he snaps. “She isn’t made to fit the dress. She’s my fiancée, she’s beautiful and perfect, and I won’t have her spoken to like this by anyone, much less a member of my own damn family.”

I’ve got my face in my hands, so when a pair of arms wraps around me I’m not expecting it. His touch tugs all my threads loose, and I start crying into his shoulder.

These places are stupid.” “They’re not,” I sob. “They are if they turn you down. I want to get into my car and go throw eggs at all of them.” My sob turns into a laugh, and the cheek he has resting against my hairline tightens, telling me he’s smiling.

I didn’t know if you’d understand.” “I would,” he says softly. “And I’d want to be here for you. Support you and make you feel better. I want you to tell me when you get bad news so that you’re not going through it alone.”

“Whatever you want to do,” he tells me, “I’ll support you.”

“That’s Naomi, you idiot,” his wife snaps, and he just scratches his head. His confusion is understandable. Harold likes to speak directly to my chest when addressing me, and thanks to this lovely window that conceals everything but my head and neck, my identification has been rendered a mystery.

He cradles my jaw in his hands. His gaze is molten and he looks almost like he could love me. I think about all the times I almost walked away and it’s terrifying. I would have missed out on this.

I’m asleep when it sinks into my consciousness that I’m not alone. I open my eyes to the darkness, fuzzy-brained and not quite out of my dream yet. It’s late, after midnight. There’s a man lying next to me, in exactly the place he’s supposed to be. This is where he belongs, and yet it’s a lightning strike straight to the heart to see him here. “What are you doing home?” I blink several times, waiting for him to disappear. I’m still dreaming. “You missed me.” “You came home because I missed you?” He’s got his elbow bent on the pillow, palm under the back of his head, watching me fathomlessly. His other hand drapes across his stomach. “Yes.” My pulse speeds up, because I’m in his room and he’s caught me. He drove home all night in the snow and the dark and found someone sleeping in his bed. This is where he belongs, but he might not say the same about whoever it is he sees when he looks at me. Which Naomi? Can he tell a difference?

It’s not scary anymore to strip down like this in front of him. He’s got me. He’s right here, and I’ve got him, too.