You Deserve Each Other

by Sarah Hogle

I’m a miserable cynic (a newer development) and a dreamy romantic (always have been), and it’s such a terrible combination that I don’t know how to tolerate myself.

It reminds me of my mother once saying that you can’t tell men about your unfixable problems, because they’ll want to fix them and not being able to do so fries their wiring.

Is my problem unfixable? I don’t know what my problem is. I’m the problem, probably.

overpriced jewelry (if the jewelry’s for me) and plants that will slowly wilt for a week before turning to sludge (again: if they’re for me).

Nicholas told her we’re saving ourselves for marriage because she’s ridiculously old-fashioned and has to be coddled and lied to, and when she told me I looked pregnant I was sorely tempted to say it was twins.

I’ve endured so much awfulness for the sake of keeping the peace that I ought to qualify for sainthood.

I look at Nicholas and realize I am actually marrying this man. Forty percent because I love him and sixty percent because I’m too afraid to call it off.

Girl 🤡

“I’ll be rushed for time and I’m already stressed out, but what else is new?” “Preach, sister,” I mutter under my breath.

Misery loves company, after all. If I’m going to be thinking vindictive thoughts all night, I might as well drag him down into the trenches with me.

“How long do we have to stay?” he grumbles. “Will there be food? I didn’t eat before I left. And I don’t want to be out late. I have things to do tomorrow.” You’d think I forced him to come.

I try to remember what falling in love felt like and can’t recall.

just stuffs his hands in his pockets and follows slowly like he’s on his way to the electric chair.

I have perpetual purple shadows under my eyes and every time they see me they ask me if I’m sick. Every. Single. Time.

He’s here because he took my laugh as a dare, and he’s every bit as spiteful as I am.

and it’s entirely possible that we are going to break up over a board game, which would be a hell of a way to go out.

He offers me a spatula to lick, which I refuse because maybe his trick is to use salmonella to kill me,

If Nicholas jumps ship now, Deborah will revert back to nagging him to procreate using the frozen, ten-year-old eggs of her friend from tennis, Abigail, who died a year ago and for whatever ungodly reason left her eggs to the Rose family.

I have no idea what I’m bringing to our relationship right now aside from the fact that I’m keeping dead Abigail’s frozen eggs at bay.

“What do you want for dinner tomorrow?” I ask in a tone that sounds like I love him. It’s an effort, and I’m exhausted. “You pick.” “Chicken tacos.” “I was thinking stir-fry,” he replies, and I know it’s utterly unfair but my ten percent drops to nine. At this stage of the game, it takes nothing at all to dock points. If he breathes too loudly in his sleep tonight he’ll wake up to a score of negative fifty.

estan mal 🫣

My engagement to Nicholas Rose is a game of chicken.

🐔🐔🐔🐔

Nicholas doesn’t work today but he’s gone somewhere else after dropping off those stupid cookies, probably off to braid his mother’s hair.

Nicholas doesn’t like bangs? Fantastic. I don’t like Nicholas.

Voluntarily saying you’re going to do it and then not doing it is an act of hostility.

I spend the rest of our journey to Sycamore Lane thinking about how my next fiancé is going to be Nicholas’s polar opposite. He’ll have long blond hippie hair and a beard, an artist who rubs Pop Rocks on his teeth. His name is Anthony but he writes it & thony. He’s indisputably an orphan.

“News? What news? Tell us, Nicky.” “Tell them, Nicky,” I parrot. Deborah divides a stricken look between us. Clearly, she’s terrified I’m pregnant. An out-of-wedlock baby! What would Pastor Thomas say? Just to scare her a little more, I absently drape a hand over my stomach.

“Darling, I don’t think I know what news you’re referring to.” “It’s unexpected news.” I’m relishing this. “We weren’t planning on it happening quite yet, but that’s the way life goes.” “If you do have news,” he grates, “I know it’s not mine.”

“I wish Nicholas were handsier—I mean handier,” I say, stealing the spotlight right back. “I’ve been performing maintenance duties by myself. But I’ve been getting better results, interestingly enough.” Nicholas’s stare is dehydrating. “Sounds unlikely.” “Maintenance duties?” Deborah repeats, turning to him. “Has something broken? Naomi shouldn’t be trying to fix anything. She could make it worse.” “I have no choice,” I tell her in a low, conspiratorial voice. “It’s a desperate situation, and Nicholas won’t use his tools.” I tap my mouth with a fingernail, watching him go rigid. “Nicholas has no use for tools,” Deborah says emphatically, unaware that we are speaking in encrypted hate. “If something isn’t working, call a professional.” “Good thinking. Do you know which handyman that lady was writing in about?” Nicholas is fed up. “Being handy is unsatisfying when your fiancée is so obviously distracted and barely pitches in,”

THS IS THE UNHINGES I’M HERE FOR 👹

“We’re not having children,” I declare. “I’m barren. I lost my uterus in a Ponzi scheme.”

“I need to feel alive!” “I think what you need is a granola bar and maybe a trial run with the Eagle Scouts.”

“You want to plan our lives based on a coin toss? That sounds about right.” I wish he’d flip a coin to decide the fate of our relationship while he’s at it. Heads, we break up. Tails, we flip the coin again.

But I know who these are from, and I’ve gotten his message, all right. He might as well have put it on a neon sign. HERE ARE THE FUCKING FLOWERS YOU NEEDED SO MUCH. ENJOY.

“Looks kind of like oleander,” says Melissa warily. Zach cocks his head. “Isn’t oleander poisonous?” Suddenly the flowers make sense. It’s an assassination attempt.

oleander is a way of telling them to watch out. Like, in a threatening way.” “‘Watch out’ like we’re gonna die, watch out?” My voice is exceptionally high.

Maybe he’s cheating.” “What about me?” Brandy asks. “He’s got an insatiable taste for murder by now. You’re collateral damage.”

“He wants to kill us all because he lost Clue?” Brandy says doubtfully. “This can’t be right.”

Melissa, Brandy, and I are staunch feminists but today we turn our backs on equality by playing the help-me-I’m-just-a-girl card, and vote Zach to take one for the team.

Did you not get the flowers? Nicholas’s text reminds me that he’s the evil villain in my story and I should drive forty-five minutes in either direction to recover from my trauma at a sibling’s house. I purse my lips and reply. If you’re asking whether I’m alive, the answer is yes. Nice try! I incinerated them. He texts back right away. WTF DID YOU ACTUALLY BURN THEM

“Of course you’re invited to the wedding!” There will never be a wedding.

Anyway, what do you think the surprise is, Naomi?” I open my mouth and can’t think of a single nice thing this surprise could be. Whatever it is, Nicholas has the edge on me. I’m racked with nerves. “Dinner,” I say. “He’ll serve me to a mountain lion.” In a boiling cauldron of lettuce and carrots, like a Bugs Bunny bit.

“I’m going to put off going home for as long as possible,” I tell them. Brandy nods sagely. “I might go see a movie. Then grab something to eat. Then see another movie. By the time I get home, the mountain lion will have gotten so impatient that it’ll have already eaten Nicholas. We’ll watch Netflix together on the couch. A wildlife documentary.”

“Oh my god,” I say in a hoarse whisper. “You’re going to drag me into the woods and shoot me, aren’t you?” I’m not being dramatic. He’s dressed like one of Morris’s many avid hunters.

This is how I’ll die: slightly unwilling but ultimately lazy.

“Are you having a midlife crisis?” He’s a bit young for one, but then again he reads all the boring parts of the newspaper and there are usually Werther’s candies in his pockets.

“Are you malfunctioning?” he asks, mildly entertained. He’s twelve steps ahead of me. He’s twelve steps above. Behind. Everywhere.