I Told My Boyfriend His Dead Mother Would Be Ashamed. He Hasn't Spoken to Me in 47 Days.

I keep thinking about the exact moment the words left my mouth. Noah was standing in the kitchen, one hand braced against the counter because he couldn't quite trust the floor to hold him up. His tie was still on from work, crooked, stained with something red. We'd been screaming at each other for twelve minutes — I know because I glanced at the microwave clock when he slammed his car keys down and told me I was "impossible to live with." And then I said it. The thing you don't come back from. The thing his mother — his beautiful, fragile, twelve-months-in-the-ground mother — would have slapped me across the face for. I watched his expression change in slow motion. Whatever we were arguing about, whatever small domestic war we'd been fighting that Friday night, was over. Something else began. And for three weeks and five days now, my phone has stayed silent. But I should back up. Because the version of this story that makes me look like a monster is true. So is the version that makes him one.