You Deserve Each Other

On Sunday, Naomi puts off getting ready for dinner with Nicholas’s parents until the absolute last minute. She intentionally provokes him, trying to get him to admit she isn’t fit to be with him, but he figures out her game, leaving her speechless. Naomi sends Nicholas to dinner without her, telling him she’ll meet him there. Her new plan to end their engagement involves making herself so unpresentable that his parents call off the wedding, which she loves because “[she’s] casually setting fire to everything and it feels awesome” (144).

Naomi sells her car to Leon and buys his, which is a mismatch of different colored parts. She’s sure the car will send Deborah into shock and thinks the plan is perfect until she realizes the car is a stick shift. When it stalls out at a red light, Naomi leaves it at the intersection and runs, calling Nicholas in a panic. Worried but calm, he leaves dinner with his parents to pick her up. Naomi begs him not to take her back to dinner. Nicholas agrees, admitting he doesn’t want to deal with Deborah’s mood either. Naomi feels bad because she understands how nervous Deborah makes Nick, but she also feels betrayed that he hasn’t tried harder to stand up for her or himself.

Nicholas and Naomi are starving when they get home, but neither has gone grocery shopping, so the fridge and cabinets are nearly bare. They pour a combination of ketchup, coffee creamer, gluten-free noodles, rice, and breadcrumbs into a pot, season it with cinnamon, and force themselves to eat it, swapping questions about whether they will survive the meal. Since it’s the only food they have in the house, they also eat it for breakfast the next morning while discussing the need to go shopping before dinner. Nicholas plans to eat dinner at his parents’ house and tells Naomi she doesn’t have to attend. While Naomi appreciates not having to go, she also doesn’t want to sit home alone. She remembers when Nicholas dropped everything to help her the day before. She wishes he were around all the time but knows she “can’t wait for that Nicholas to pop up every now and then” (164).

Over the next few weeks, the back-and-forth to end the relationship intensifies. Nicholas and Naomi play increasingly terrible pranks on one another, such as Naomi livestreaming Nicholas being sung to by pirates at a seafood restaurant and Nicholas posting a picture of Naomi drooling in her sleep to social media. The Junk Yard is officially closed, which means being mean to Nicholas is Naomi’s only motivation to get out of bed in the morning, and her hunt for a new job is going nowhere. One morning, Naomi puts Nicholas’s hand in a bowl of warm water while he sleeps. Nicholas knocks the bowl over onto his phone, soaking it. Naomi thinks this is hilarious and taunts him about it. In retaliation, Nicholas drives over her favorite shrub in the yard until it comes up by the roots.

When Nicholas gets home from work, he’s in a rage. His mother kept calling his office because his cell phone was dead. He wants to take Naomi’s phone until he gets a new one. Naomi questions why he’s blaming her, not his mother, and refuses to give up her phone. When it buzzes from across the room, Naomi is sure it’s another job application rejection, and she fights like mad to get to it so Nicholas won’t see her failure. He grabs it first, and she attacks him. The two wrestle across the room, finally ending up on the floor. The exchange arouses Nicholas. When he looks at Naomi like he truly wants her, she’s caught completely off guard.

Nicholas asks who texted her. Naomi tells him it wasn’t a text but refuses to let him see her phone because it’s none of his business. Nicholas counters that he’d let her see his because “I am your business […] “or I’m supposed to be” (187). Looking outside, Nicholas realizes it’s starting to rain. Since the temperature is supposed to drop, he leaves to salt his parents’ driveway. After he leaves, Naomi gets a text from her mom, asking about the wedding invitations. Naomi doesn’t know what to say and deletes the text.

Since Naomi lost her job, she finds herself at home with Nicholas more often than before. On Saturday, Naomi does chores and then insists it’s too warm in the house, turning down the heat. Nicholas asks her for ideas of what to get his boss for a Secret Santa gift. Naomi doesn’t know because she’s only met the woman once and doesn’t understand why he’s asking her. When Naomi complains it’s too cold in the house, Nicholas leaves, returning shortly with a canoe. From the backyard, Naomi watches as he tries to go fishing, only to lose an oar and spin in slow circles. Naomi doubles over laughing, and enraged, Nicholas swims to shore, throws her over his shoulder, and dunks her into the water. Naomi gets free and runs into the house, locking herself in the bathroom to take a shower and use all the hot water.

Nicholas picks the lock and joins her in the shower. Both of them eye the other, and Naomi feels the 12 weeks since they’ve had sex like a physical sensation in her body. Abruptly, she desperately hopes it’s been 12 weeks for him, too, because that would mean he didn’t cheat on her. Images of him with someone else cram her brain, and she silently admits, “If I discover him cheating on me in a shopping mall parking lot I’m going to end up on the evening news” (208-09). Still, she’s too scared to act on her feelings and hurries to rinse off and leave.

When Naomi reemerges from her room, Nicholas is out of the shower. It’s snowing outside, and Naomi rushes into the room Nicholas claimed as his office, which has huge windows. Naomi can’t see out, though, because his desk is in the way. Haltingly, she explains how she would have used the room as a sitting room because the view is so nice. Nicholas goes to look out the window, seeming to notice the view for the first time.