I took a deep breath. “What’s upsetting to me”—this seemed like a good time for I-statements—“is that you just seem like you’re naturally drawn to a lifestyle I feel alienated by and naturally alienated from a lifestyle I feel drawn to and…and that’s a crappy thing to realise when you’re about to marry somebody.”

“You’re overextrapolating.” Oliver wasn’t normally this blunt, but then he wasn’t normally this tired. “If I misinterpreted the situation, then I’m sorry, but I’ve only been trying to support you. These have been your friends’ weddings after all.”

Fuck that. He wasn’t getting away with that. “Can you please drop the I’m-only-trying-to-please-you thing. Either you’re bullshitting me—”

“I’m not bullshitting you, Luci—”

“Either you’re bullshitting me,” I pressed on, “which is bad. Or you genuinely have no opinions of your own and are still doing that thing I really thought you’d stopped doing where you just try to perform whatever it is you think somebody else is expecting of you.”

“I’m not—”

It was no use. I’d gone full dam-break. “And now it seems like you’re going to want our wedding to be this mega-traditional bells-and-incense thing with no queer iconography because you’re so insecure in yourself that rainbows make you uncomfortable.”

I’d gone too far. I’d gone significantly too far. “I don’t believe,” said Oliver way too calmly, in a voice I’d never heard him use before, “that the fact I don’t feel personally represented by a set of symbols invented by a very specific group of Americans in the late 1970s and popularised as much by global capitalism as by activists makes me insecure in myself.”

Part of me wanted to apologise because I’d obviously hurt him. But also, for all he was doing the I’m-a-lawyer-so-I-talk-good thing, I didn’t think I was entirely wrong. And unfortunately, as I knew from experience on both sides of the equation, I’m sorry but I’m right never went down well.

“I didn’t…” I tried.

“You did,” he replied. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I might take a short walk in the grounds.”

I made a confused noise because what could you say to something like that? No, stay sounded either controlling or needy but fine, go sounded huffy as fuck. Besides, normally when we fought—which we didn’t that much—I was the one shutting it down or needing my space or, in extreme cases, hiding in a bathroom. And I hadn’t realised quite how rubbish it felt to be on the other end.