We used to sit and read together. Shitty poetry. Whatever. And he knows everything already. But he would ask me what I thought. Listen. Then he’d make connections and and talk on and on about people who had more to say about what I had to say. I had never met anyone like him.

Then the rings.

It was pretty immediate. He stopped waking up in the mornings. He didn’t talk to me at night. He just kind of sat there like a stone. I bought lingerie I never used. He wouldn’t notice, or acknowledge me if I put it on. I cried in the basement shower a lot.

My wedding ring didn’t even fit. It was too small. He said he forgot to get it resized.

Then I was pregnant. Found out about a month into marriage. I asked him to put down his phone. He didn’t acknowledge me. He wouldn’t put it down. So I tried to take it from his hands. He grabbed me by the wrist. Too hard.

One Sunday morning, the wedding ring slipped off my pinky.

In therapy, we described our issues as cyclical. He obsesses over some project at work, I take on more and more and more until I can’t. Then he’s attentive for a little while. It fades. Then theres some other obsession. My biggest fear is that I fell in love with the performance.

I still look for the ring.