Lesson 1: Taking it out on your boyfriend

She came home that day feeling something miserable. It was not the first time. Lately the miserable days were far outnumbering the non-miserable days. Which is why she was so grateful that her boyfriend, whom she had moved in with just a few short months ago, had promised to go jogging with her that evening. It would be an understatement to say that she had been looking forward to this all day. It was the one last thread that had maintained her sanity throughout the last eight hours, that had kept her from running screaming from the insane requests, buzzes, phone calls, emails, and meetings that plagued her working life. Running, she had repeated to herself. Running tonight. Running tonight.

She took a deep breath, and, not feeling any less tense, swung open the back door of the apartment, stepping into the kitchen.

The kitchen opened out on the living room, where Stephen was sitting cross-legged on the couch. He was surrounded by notebooks and papers, and was intently focused on the laptop positioned directly in front of him.

“Hello,” he smiled, glancing up.
“Are we going running?” She something-less-than-snapped while rifling through the mail.
“Err… um…” he glanced at the screen in front of him. “Yes. Give me just one moment.” Hunched shoulders and rapid typing ensued.

She sighed. He kept typing. She tried sighing a little louder. Still typing. She stared as hard as she could, hoping to bore through the laptop, certain that if she could just regain eye contact he would immediately understand the utter urgency and desperation of the moment.

Stephen kept typing.

Exasperated, she gave up and stepped into the bedroom. Dropping keys then handbag then shoes, she face planted on the bed, and in the wink of an eye dropped into an angry sleep.

Forty minutes later she woke up feeling angrier. The daylight was waning. She stuck her head round the corner of the bedroom; half hoping the pillow hair might enhance the effect.

“HEY!” This was not yelling—she was not a yeller.
“Yes?” he looked up.
“You promised you’d take me jogging!” this was not whining—just a factual statement of the enormous treachery that had been committed.
“But… you fell asleep?”

The flood broke loose.

“AH! You’re horrible I hate you you’re the worst you you—” she continued, striding into the bedroom, pulling off her shirt and finding her things and tying her sneakers and now and then he would try to interject, in the mildest of tones, “But, Miss B—” which was invariably cut short by a dark look and heated if unintelligible muttering. She desperately wanted to beat him out of the house but unfortunately she had her long hair to tie back and bangs to pin up, so if anything he was ready before her, a fact that she attempted to ignore while slamming the screen door.

They strolled out into the waning light, shoulder to shoulder, an ominous silence growing between them.

Steve wore silver shoes and bright blue running shorts. He had an amiable English face, and endearingly scrawny legs. Steve hated to exercise. Constitutionally thin, he didn’t much see the point. It was something he did for her, because he knew that she loved it and loved his company.

They had walked nearly a block before he finally turned to her and appealed, “Miss B, how are you?”

To some, this might have been the tipping point: the ideal moment; to vent, to fold, to confess, to apologize, in short, to make some constructive effort towards feeling better. Our heroine declined this opportunity.

It swelled. She exploded.

“AH! I hate you!!” she not-yelled, and reaching up one arm she shoved Stephen directly sideways into the nearest hedge, before taking off full speed down the sidewalk, the fastest she could run.

Which, unfortunately for our heroine, was something less fast than the fastest Steve could run. After a brief episode of flailing about in the bushes, he reemerged on the sidewalk and easily caught up with her. At which point--being more of a jogger than a runner really, anyways—she ran short of breath, and was forced the indignity of having to slow down. What followed was a most peculiar form of exercise, as witnessed by the average onlooker. Sprint, then stop—sprint, then walk—sprint—walk—stop—wildly gesticulate—and then sprint again.

Between these spurts were short bursts of conversation: “But I—but you—but see—but AH!” “Miss B—please stop—I know—your job—” until finally, winding down, they walked side by side again, in the direction of home.

She felt something less than proud of herself. Breathing hard, hands on hips, she hung her head defensively, and as the last of it swelled in her chest, she exhaled, “but—see?”

“It’s okay, Miss B.”

They stopped with a scraping of sneakers on pavement. She considered, for the first time that evening, this possibility.

“It’s okay. Calm down, Miss B.”
“Don’t you tell me to calm down!” she finally smiled, and she let him slip his arm around her shoulders, and a few steps later slipped her arm around his waist as well.

“Stephen,” she said. A swallow lilted low on his way to his nest, and turning the corner she could see the glow of their porch light through the branches of the big willow tree.
“Hmm?”
“Do you love me even when I’m miserable and ridiculous?”
“Hm,” proffered Stephen, slipping his fingers into her right hand, and squeezing it in the dark.

She felt something more than lucky to have someone to cook a curry with that night.