There was an afternoon a few months back when Tyler came home unexpectedly early; he wasn’t feeling well. It was around 3 p.m. on a Thursday, one of my days off from the gym, and I was sitting on the kitchen floor with my legs splayed out in a lazy straddle, organizing the new spice rack I had ordered online. Around me, there was a mess of little plastic bottles: saffron, nutmeg, coriander, star anise, red pepper flakes. I had accumulated so many, splurging on whatever I needed to make a recipe sing. I’d discovered, once I moved in with Tyler, that I liked to cook; the process kept my hands and mind busy. And after an adolescence of grilled chicken and microwaved Lean Cuisines, the rich flavors I created felt like a gift. So I alphabetized the spices, sipping a generous pour of sauvignon blanc.

“Oh, you’re… still home?” Tyler had said, a note of surprise in his voice, taking in my ragged pajama pants and the afternoon glass of wine. He looked past my shoulder, toward the living room I had vacuumed, dusted, and straightened up earlier that day.

“Hi! I didn’t know you’d be home so early,” I chirped. I tilted my chin up so he could give me a kiss, but he didn’t. “Do you want something to eat? I can whip something up really quickly if you’re hungry.”

Tyler shook his head and turned on SportsCenter. The open-floor-plan layout of the apartment meant I could stay in that same spot on the floor and see him on the couch in the living room. But a few seconds later, he turned off the TV.

“You don’t want to, I don’t know… do something?” he asked, voice dripping with disgust.

“I’m doing this,” I said, gesturing to the spice rack.

“You’re practically a housewife,” he said. “Minus the husband and kids.”

I gave him a sour look. We’d talked about marriage as a possibility someday, because it seemed impossible to be living together in a years-long relationship in your midtwenties and not talk about it.

“I work,” I said evenly.

“Part-time,” he clarified.

“You’re the one who suggested it,” I reminded him.

“I didn’t think you’d be happy with that little to-do forever,” he countered.

“So, what? What do you want me to do?” I asked, slumping against the refrigerator and resisting the urge to grab my wineglass, lest it make me look even more like some awful cliché.

He sighed. “I don’t know, have a… passion? Have some kind of ambition?”

“You know I do. You know I did,” I said defensively, thinking furiously: How dare he.

“It’s been a long time, Avery.” His words drip out carefully, like he’s been churning over the best way to say this for a while.