“I wanted him to snap, to finally and absolutely lose it. To break. He was withering. To wither is not the same as to break; to break is to have pieces to put back together, and to wither is to dry up, to wilt, to lose bone, to die, and death is the most boring. I needed to see pieces. So I broke the vase. He looked at me with bland pity, as if I were the one withering.”