“What do you want?” Hen asks, surprising me.

I’m standing at the fridge, the door open. I thought I was in here alone.

“You scared me,” I say.

I’m completely caught off guard by her question. I’ve been back over a month, and Hen has barely spoken to me, barely asked me a question in days, maybe even weeks.

“What do you want?” she asks again.

I straighten up, swing the fridge door closed.

“A snack,” I say. “I want a snack. And I’m getting it.”

“I don’t mean from the fridge. I’m talking about this. Us.”

I should have figured it would be a question like this—aggressive, laced with anger, demanding.

“I have what I want,” I say. “I don’t just mean the snack, either. I mean this. All of it. I don’t want to go anywhere else again. This is it.”

“So this?” she says with her arms raised in the air. “This is enough for you?”

“I don’t know what you’re getting at. I’m the one who had to leave, while you got to stay home. It wasn’t easy up there, Hen.”

“Do you ever think about what my life is like—before, during, after? Does it ever even occur to you that I don’t exist to look after you? You’re oblivious, and you can’t even see that I’ve changed.”

“Of course I can,” I say, “And I hate it. I hate it like this. I want you the way you were before, Hen. That’s what I want.”

“Is it? Is that really what you want?”

“Yes,” I say. “You’ve been living with a monster. It’s over now. Can’t you just get used to that fact? I’m back. We have everything we need right here, and I’m not leaving again, ever. You don’t have to worry about that. We have our life back.”

“No,” she says. “You have your life back. This is the life for you.”

I’m expecting her to continue, to say more, to yell. Instead, she leaves.

“Hen!” I call out after her. “Did you fuck it?”

I hear the front door open.

And then it slams shut.