It gets harder. We romanticize different things. Love is exciting when it's different. Love is easy when it's the same.

I wake up to screamed expletives and stamping feet. M's boyfriend is running up and down the stairs. "Fuck!" he cries. I can't hear her voice. He sounds like he's ready to hit something. The landlords must have woken downstairs, maybe also their 13-year-old daughter. What do you tell her about an episode like this? Don't expect that. Don't plan for that.

N has woken, also. We murmur, "Did you hear that's?" and he holds me a little tighter in defense against an oblique threat on the other side of the door. Gray light from the street reflects in his open eyes, the white duvet, the breadth of his chest.

The door slams a final time. Silence. I roll over and fall back to sleep.