“We never argued. We just took turns being quietly disappointed and calling it being easygoing.”

It looked like harmony from outside and mostly felt like relief from inside. Neither of us wanted to be the one who made things heavy, so we each absorbed a little more than we should have and called it low maintenance.

What accumulates is not quite resentment. It is a growing list of subjects that have to be walked around, until the conversation gets smaller than the relationship. The first real argument we had was almost pleasant. Not because it went well, but because something finally got said in the room instead of in my head.