INGREDIENTS2 parents (overbearing, preferably judgmental)1 partner, living with you, well and truly done with you17 days of poor communication5 weeks till the lease runs out1 desperate birthday party2 drunk texts from your ex (seen by partner)Between 3 and 7 shots of tequilaINSTRUCTIONSAt Thanksgiving dinner, sit silently as your parents (not for the first time) criticize your partner: their outfit, their career, their taste in music, and any of the other myriad things they’re sensitive about. Your family has always been good at that: hitting where it hurts.Don’t comfort your partner; your parents weren’t even that mean about it. You’ve gotten it way worse since you were little, and you turned out fine.Let them stew in disdain and resentment the whole ride home.Take the bait when they say something passive-aggressive back in your apartment. Begin fighting. Let it escalate for 15-20 minutes, till the tension is palpable in the air.Give in to your ugliest inclinations, say regrettable things. Profanity optional. Shouting required.Accuse them of goading your parents, even though they didn’t. Get angrier when they call you out for never standing up to your dad, and for always letting your mom guilt you.Go to bed angry. Sleep restlessly in the same bed, too close together. It might feel too warm right now, but maybe it’s always felt that way.Do not apologize for 3-5 days, depending on your mutual levels of spite.Apologize (halfheartedly, still annoyed). Accept their genuine apology, and be even more annoyed that they’re being the bigger person here.Engage in nothing more than polite conversation until the facade begins to crumble.Stew in your own sad little pot of resentment. Let it simmer. Heat to a boil until something little has it frothing over the edge. Maybe you leave the dishes out, or maybe they forget to vacuum,but suddenly you’re screaming at each other.Don’t think about how much they sound like your father when they shout at you.Sit in the silent aftershocks of the argument.After two nights of not looking at each other, add an hour of passionate sex: either makeup or breakup. They’re harder to tell apart than you think.Don’t talk about it afterwards. Don’t talk about any of it afterwards.Put aside the fact that the two of you haven’t looked at apartments yet, and the lease is running out. Let it cool. Don’t talk about it. Make it tomorrow’s problem.When tomorrow comes, make it the next day’s.Repeat until it’s too late. Don’t talk about it.Let your partner plan you a birthday party you don’t want in the hopes that it will make them look at you affectionately again.When your ex sends you a drunken, “I miss you,” text the day before the party, don’t block them. There’s no reason why they shouldn’t already be blocked. Don’t delete the texts either.Leave your phone faceup in front of your partner with your messages app open on the table when you run to the kitchen for a snack.Don’t answer your partner’s questions. Pick a fight with them for glancing at your screen in your absence. Don’t acknowledge the texts. Don’t acknowledge the fact that you haven’t blocked your ex after all this time.Ask your partner why they’re so mad. It’s not like you responded.Ask them what business they have checking your texts.Ask them where they got the gall to come at you like this.Ask them if they really can’t stand you, then why the fuck are they still here?Don’t take it back. Let it hang in the air between the two of you without any regrets or apologies. There’s no going back now.Say nothing as they walk out of the living room.Say nothing as the sound of them throwing open drawers and stuffing a suitcase echoes through the silent apartment.Say nothing.Don’t apologize.Don’t beg them to stay.Don’t even look at them as they hesitate in the doorway. Don’t look up at all until after the front door closes. Don’t call out until it’s too late for them to hear you crying.Cry.Cry until you feel better.Cry until it hurts more.Keep crying.It won’t help.Text your ex back.It won’t help.Take a shot of tequila.It won’t help.Don’t think about how much you sound like your mother when you sob.Ignore the puzzled messages from the partygoers waiting at the bar for you and your partner.Take a shot of tequila.Remove the store-bought cake from its plastic container.Take a shot of tequila.Eat the cake.It doesn’t help.Don’t cut it into slices. Take forkfuls of it right out of the container. It’s less dignified that way; you are miles past any sense of dignity.Wait for a text from your partner that will not come.Watch as your ex types, stops typing, types, stops.Sprinkle bitter tears into the cake frosting. A little bit of salt goes a long way.Look at your apartment through the gaussian blur of sadness. Look at the home you built together. Shelves stacked with books from both of you, walls hung heavy with pictures of you happy. The fridge a mess of your joint culinary tastes. Their pillows resting on your couch sitting on top of a rug whose cost you split 50/50.Think about what comes next: the untangling. The separation. The division of possessions. The squabbling over who gets what. The crushing banality of two lives coming apart.It isn’t fair.Take a shot of tequila.Why did it have to be like this?Eat more birthday cake.Why do you have to be like this?Open your laptop with greasy fingers. Scroll apartment listings, barely reading any of the details. Look at the pretty places and imagine a life there without your partner until the homes no longer seem so pretty.Take a forkful of cake every time you think of your partner, and the empty side of the bed they left behind. Struggle to work up the energy to chew. Wash down the detritus with another mouthful of tequila.Stumble to the bathroom when the awful mixture comes back up.Vomit into the shower drain, because the toilet seat was closed.Vomit until your throat burns and your chest aches and you’re choking on sobs.Clog the drain.Curl up in a ball against the cold tiled wall. Stare into the foul-looking, fouler-smelling mound of half-digested cake and cheap tequila.Wonder if this is what you deserve.Try not to step into the sickness on your way to the hall closet. Pull on your partner’s old cleaning gloves and fight to unfurl a black trash bag. Try to scoop the pile into the bag. Vomit more at the smell of it.This is what you deserve: an empty house and an uncertain future and a sick-stuffed trash bag spilling into your shower drain.Drop your gloves into the mess. Leave the trash bag in the shower. You’re too drunk. You can’t fix this.You can’t fix any of this.Stumble out of the bathroom, reeking and stained. Fall, exhausted and sick-smelling, onto their pillows and your couch.Cry yourself to sleep. Toss and turn. Crawl to the kitchen in the middle of the night to throw up into the trash can. Spend the weekend deep-cleaning, packing, and looking at apartment listings. When your partner comes back Sunday evening, don’t look up from the television screen. Don’t talk to them. Don’t listen to them. You’re still tired. They’re still angry.Wonder if this is how your mother felt. Wonder if this is how your father felt. Wonder how the two of them managed to stay together after fights like this. Wonder why they bothered.Let your partner go. There’s nothing left for them here.