You Deserve Each Other

“This morning I found one of my tires completely flat. Standing there staring at it, I was transported to a year ago when Nicholas remarked that he ought to teach me how to change a tire. Offended by his assumption that I didn’t already know how to change a tire, I set him straight and informed him that I’ve known for years how to do that. I’m a modern, responsible, self-sufficient woman. I don’t need a man to help me with vehicular maintenance.

The thing is, I do not actually know how to change a tire.”

Juxtaposed against the previous quotation from the Prologue, this excerpt reveals how drastically Naomi’s attitude toward Nicholas changed in less than a year—since the incident she remembers here is from a year before the story takes place. These lines also start to dig at the problems in the relationship, showing that Naomi’s lies are at least partly responsible for the strife. Rather than telling Nicholas the truth, Naomi let her fears of being inadequate control her.

“It’s not as bad as it sounds if you think about the couples you know. If they’re being honest, a lot of them would list a lower number than the one they’d declare out loud. The truth is that I don’t think any two people both feel one hundred percent in love with each other at the same exact time, all the time. They might take turns being seventy-five, their personal high, while the other clocks in at sixty.”

Here, Hogle implies the idea of love and relationships as a give-and-take—a lesson Naomi and Nicholas have yet to internalize. Naomi grapples with how to maintain a relationship beyond the pounding heartbeat and fluttery sensations she associates with new love. She isn’t yet able or willing to honestly look at the gradual deterioration of her relationship with Nicholas and admit the ways she’s complicit, establishing the starting point of her arc.

“If he asks me what’s wrong and my issue isn’t one he can make go away with a few reassuring words, Nicholas gets frustrated. It reminds me of my mother once saying that you can’t tell men about your unfixable problems, because they’ll want to fix them and not being able to do so fries their wiring.”

This passage establishes the evolution of Naomi’s posture toward her relationship across the novel. She moves from wallowing in negative feelings that nothing can be done and she’s stuck in a miserable situation to recognizing her own complicity and taking action to create change. Here, instead of admitting she has choices, Naomi blames Nicholas for his inability to listen, understand her feelings, and support her, highlighting the novel’s thematic interest in The Destructive Nature of Poor Communication in Romantic Partnerships.

“When you build a life with someone, so many of your building blocks prop up your partner, and you’re propped up by theirs, until your foundations merge and walking away risks destabilization for you both. We have joint checking and savings accounts. Our phones are on the same plan. Both of our names are on the lease, and it stands to reason that whoever bails forfeits the house. His parents have invested in me, grooming me into Mrs. Rose material. We have obligations together. Long-term plans. I can’t cut a line between Nicholas and me and float away free, because we have tangles.”

Here, Hogle uses concrete, pragmatic elements of romantic partnership to underscore her broader exploration of identity in You Deserve Each Other. In addition to the emotional aspect of being in a relationship, Naomi reflects on the ways she’s connected to Nicholas through money, living arrangements, and other real-world ties that are difficult and messy to break. Naomi’s fear pushes her to use the inconvenience of untangling her life from Nicholas’s as an excuse for remaining stuck even though she’s unhappy.

“A Shakespearean plaque is bolted to the brick siding: A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME WOULD STILL SMELL AS SWEET. There’s not supposed to be a still in that quote. I looked it up once to make sure it was a typo but never pointed it out to Mr. and Mrs. Rose because I don’t want them getting a new one with the correct quote. I derive vicious pleasure from knowing their plaque is wrong.”

Throughout the book, Naomi contends with Deborah’s needling passive-aggressiveness, but this quotation shows that Naomi can be just as petty. The quotation in question here comes from the famous “what’s in a name” monologue in William Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet, where Juliet pines after Romeo, deciding he is still beautiful even though he is a Montague—the enemy of her family. Nicholas’s family name is Rose, and this plaque represents Deborah’s pretentious nature by suggesting she—and, by extension, her family—is as relevant and cultured as Shakespeare’s work. It’s later revealed that Nicholas hasn’t brought the mistake to his mother’s attention either, making this plaque one of the ways he and Naomi team up against Deborah.

“When we toured the house, we were so dreamy over our love nest that we didn’t take into consideration that the limited street parking would make it a pain to accommodate two cars. We didn’t notice the floors weren’t level, which means every time I drop my ChapStick I have to chase it before it rolls under the furniture. We didn’t think about the fact that there was only one spare room that could be turned into an office.”

These lines provide context for the early months of Nicholas and Naomi’s joint arc. When they toured the house, they were still in the “honeymoon” phase of the relationship, and everything they did together was colored by their infatuation. They didn’t think about the practicalities of the house—only that they would be together. Establishing this early mindset allows Hogle to explore the progression of long-term commitment with all its benefits and challenges.

“My heart starts thumping erratically from the way he’s looking at me. I’ve been tuning out my attraction to him and suddenly it comes pounding back with a vengeance, until all I notice is the adorable curl of his hair, the sensual curve of his smile, the delicious notes of his cologne. He’s gorgeous and I hate him for spoiling it with his personality.”

Hogle uses Naomi’s internal monologue to highlight the ways frustration, disdain, and unhappiness can coexist alongside sexual attraction. Even as Naomi actively pushes Nicholas away, she feels drawn to him—a paradox that creates tension and fuels the central conflict.

“One of my favorite parts of the job has been rearranging our displays, setting up elaborate live tableaus with marionettes playing Frisbee or re-creating iconic movie scenes with pop culture figurines. I’d dress our faithful old stuffed raccoon, Toby, in dog sweaters and berets and place him in a new position every day: by the register, reading a magazine; smoking a pipe on top of the jukebox; on the windowsill, peering outside through a pair of small binoculars. Brandy and Leon love looking for Toby when they clock in, and say my talent for devising full scenes out of the merchandise is being wasted somewhere we don’t ever get customers.”

This passage in the Junk Yard highlights the contrast between Naomi’s manner and behavior with her friends versus with Nicholas, pointing to the text’s thematic interest in The Importance of Living Authentically. At home, Naomi feels disengaged and apathetic, while at work, her creative spirit is on full display as she uses her talents to decorate the shop in fun, unique ways.

“The creature inhabiting Nicholas’s body looks down at me with the most peculiar mixture of pleasure and solemnity, and I get the feeling he is wide, wide awake while I am just beginning to stir from my hibernation. He’s skipped his contacts again, eyes sparking with intensity behind slate-gray frames. The ends of his hair curling out from his hat are so soft-looking, I almost want to touch but snatch my hand back because it feels too forward. He’s my fiancé, but not. I don’t know what we are. Who we are.”

The house Nicholas buys for himself and Naomi acts as a symbol of their future together. After months of drifting apart, Naomi struggles to believe Nicholas thinks of the house as “theirs” rather than “his.” The fact that he didn’t consult her further emphasizes their emotional disconnect and poor communication. As Nicholas and Naomi begin to reconnect, Naomi becomes more invested in decorating the house and making it a space that represents both of them.

“Nicholas has a nice body. It’s elegant and toned—the sort of body you could see mastering a piano as well as running across a rugby field. Currently, I’m not privileged enough to enjoy the benefits of his nice, elegant body, so men who were not previously my type are all hot to me now. I’m in a bad way. Boulder-size men with ZZ Top beards and face tattoos. Balding mad scientists. Count Chocula. The silhouette from Mad Men’s credits. If this drought goes on any longer I’ll be lusting after the featureless figure on men’s restroom signs.”

Here, Naomi has been watching and lusting after the muscular male movers. While she typically goes for Nicholas’s “elegant and toned” type, she suddenly finds herself attracted to men she wouldn’t normally be attracted to because she hasn’t had meaningful closeness with Nicholas or anyone in weeks. This moment shows that Naomi’s general libido isn’t affected by her ongoing fight with Nicholas. On the contrary, the long drought makes her even hungrier for companionship but less picky about her partner.

“Real Nicholas hasn’t said any of this. But Imaginary Nicholas is an amalgamation of realistic predictions based on callous things he’s said to me in the past, so I easily hear his voice shape those words. It’s not fair to be hurt or angry over something he didn’t even say, especially since the words I put into my own head are all true, but knowing he potentially could say it—and probably will—is enough to make me sink into a dark silence that I don’t rise from for the rest of the ride home.”

Throughout the novel, Hogle contrasts the stories Naomi tells herself in her head with the reality of what’s happening between Naomi and Nicholas, emphasizing the degree to which Naomi’s perspective reflects her fears. Even when Naomi and Nicholas have just had a heartfelt discussion, she still fears he’ll judge her poor decision-making. Instead of being honest and vulnerable with Nicholas, Naomi creates an imagined response for him based on her insecurities.

“Something that sucks about being part of a couple: Your partner has veto power and you don’t get to just flow wherever the wind takes you. You’re not allowed to have kids or pets unless both of you are on board. You can want a dog more than anything in the whole world but if your partner says no, you’re out of luck.”

Hogle positions Naomi and Nicholas’s argument over the lost dog as representative of the compromises inherent in building a life with another person. Here, Naomi grapples with the tension between her desires and a collective set of goals for a shared life—a tension that necessitates healthy communication.

“You’re promising, but you’re just not what we’re looking for at this time. You’re good, but not good enough.

If I’m a millimeter from hitting my goal, that makes it even worse when I fail. I’d rather hear You weren’t even close. We never considered you for a second.”

Here, Hogle provides an additional example of Naomi’s tendency to play out the worst-case scenarios in her head, using them to tear herself down. Hogle highlights this behavior as evidence of the individual, internal work necessary to nurture a relationship. The narrative suggests that to thrive as a loving couple, both individuals must see themselves as worthy of love.

“Nothing.

It’s a self-appointed martyr’s answer. It ensures that the issue goes unresolved, and that I suffer all by myself. What do I get out of saying nothing?”

This scene represents a pivotal moment in Naomi’s character arc in which she finally starts to see how her own habits have contributed to the distance in the relationship and takes steps to change her behavior. When Nicholas asks what’s wrong, Naomi answers, “Nothing,” which prompts her to examine the answer. This impulse to self-reflect rather than disengage evidences her growth as a person and desire to communicate more effectively, concluding that she gets nothing out of being alone with her pain—a moment that prompts her to be honest about her feelings.

“Nicholas repositions us so that I’m on his lap instead, which lends me a thrilling dynamic of power. I could derail this right now if I wanted. Or I could tighten my grip around his wrists and kiss, bite, taste. I can do anything I like. I can feel that he’ll let me.”

Here, Naomi and Nicholas have just kissed for the first time in weeks. The experience was more emotionally charged than Naomi expected, and she’s equally shocked to find how much she wants to keep kissing him. These lines show her willingness to be intimate with him, as well as how he gives off similar willing vibes. Even more, taken together with the previous quotation, these lines reveal how Naomi is opening up to the relationship both physically and emotionally. Instead of pushing Nicholas away or closing herself off, she looks at what she wants and acts on it, offering more proof that she is making an effort to change.

“He shouldn’t be this stunned by a nice gesture. It should be a given, but it’s not, and that’s my fault. I’ve been withholding nice gestures to punish him for not giving me enough nice gestures, and just look at how well that attitude’s panned out for us.”

This moment in which Naomi admits wrongdoing on her part, specifically citing her lack of meaningful gestures as a contributing factor to the state of her relationship, marks a key moment of accountability and maturity. She realizes that her actions came from a place of petty revenge that stemmed from her perception of how Nicholas was treating her—not necessarily from the reality of what happened.

“Societal norms have conditioned me into thinking I need these dying plants in order to feel loved and appreciated. They’re objectively useless and I know that. But it’s the thought I’ll remember, not the color of the flower or how pretty it is. The gesture of Nicholas seeing the flower, thinking about me, and going and getting a ladder in order to pick it is going to stay with me. Watching him drop it into my favorite blue-green drinking glass is going to stay with me.”

Throughout the novel, Naomi expresses frustration that Nicholas doesn’t get her flowers or other frivolous gifts that show he’s thinking of and appreciates her. Here, Nicholas’s gesture pushes Naomi to reflect on the true significance of gifts. Hogle positions the flower as symbolic of care and intimacy, both things Naomi and Nicholas have been missing in their relationship.

“He sets me loose with my new character and within the first five minutes, I fall through a portal and randomly find a glowing trident that makes Nicholas gasp so loud I think I’ve done something wrong. He tells me the trident is rare, and when you stab a mythical creature with it you absorb all of its powers. He begs me to stab a dragon, but I gleefully bypass one in favor of stabbing wee mushroom people who give me the ability to bounce really high, like I’m walking on the moon.”

Here, Nicholas has just introduced Naomi to the Nightjar game. The two of them playing the game here shows them coming together as their true, fun-loving selves, and their interactions show how smooth relationships can be when the members are comfortable and invested. Naomi’s actions here also show that she isn’t afraid to be her true self in front of Nicholas at this point in the story. Rather than using the trident on a dragon because he wants her to, Naomi uses it on the little creatures so she can bounce around and have fun. Nicholas doesn’t chastise her for this, showing that he, too, feels comfortable and is enjoying the shared time together.

“As ridiculous as it might sound, in my mind he gave me such a big diamond as a way of saying I love you THIS much!; but how could he have loved me THAT much when we still didn’t completely know each other? When we’d never argued before and didn’t live together and it was such smooth sailing.”

These lines harken back to the beginning of the book and the progression of Nicholas’s relationship between the Prologue and Chapter 1. The year and nine months that passed were full of them drifting apart and not appreciating each other because they didn’t let each other be their true selves when they were together. Instead, they were hyper-focused on appearing in love and seeming like their lives were perfect. While they achieved this through social media posts and acting while in public, it was at the expense of their actual relationship. As a result, Naomi tricked herself into believing they were so perfectly in love, not realizing that true love comes from facing both good and bad times together to emerge stronger as a unit. Looking back on those early days as compared to what she and Nicholas have recently gone through, Naomi now thinks that early love was false. While this isn’t strictly true, it was not as meaningful as the love she feels now.

“I open up a new password-protected document on my computer and jot down ideas for tokens of affection. If this isn’t a fluke, and if this is to work—if—I’ll need to consistently make Nicholas feel cherished in small but significant ways. The most important and most challenging element is typed at the top so that I won’t forget: Keep doing this even if he doesn’t reciprocate in an immediately obvious way. I have to give while expecting nothing in return; otherwise, the gestures are empty.”

Here, Naomi has taken yet another step toward rebuilding the relationship—choosing to be selfless. Up until now, she has appreciated things Nicholas has done for her while choosing to do things for him when it felt like he’d show appreciation back. Here, she commits to showing him she cares, even if it gets her nothing in return. Naomi has grown to the point where she no longer needs validation from Nicholas to feel good about her actions. The knowledge that she’s doing something meaningful is enough for her to feel good about what she’s doing, which means she’s found a new level of comfort with who she is and how she feels about Nicholas.

“How we met is insignificant in light of how we met again. We met again while each trying our best to push the other one away. Whether we pushed each other too far remains to be seen. Can these past few weeks be real, and the past year a dream? Or is this the dream?”

Nicholas and Naomi make love for the first time in weeks, triggering memories of past moments early in their relationship. Naomi’s ability to recapture the forgotten moment of how she met Nicholas signals the growing connection and intimacy between them both physically and emotionally.

“‘This is the first birthday I’ve been alive that I haven’t blown out a candle and made a wish,’ he says, taking one deliberate step closer. All the oxygen in the building starts to evaporate, leaving me two insufficient gasps for each lung. ‘But you walked in here today, anyway. You ended up in the lane right next to mine, and you started talking to me, initiating conversation. What are the chances? Two people from Morris, meeting in Eau Claire? And the very one I wanted to meet.’”

These lines of Nicholas’s dialogue come during Naomi’s flashback of the day the two met. Nicholas had seen Naomi in a parking lot a few weeks earlier and hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her since. Here, he expresses his fierce attraction to her and how their meeting under such unlikely circumstances feels like an opportunity he can’t pass up. This moment is heavy with the type of romantic tension Naomi used to associate with feeling in love. Looking back on this moment through the lens of how she feels now, she can recognize the emotions of that moment as new love and opportunity, rather than the type of love that comes from long-term commitment.

“I love him, I love him. I don’t have to love every little thing about the man, but I love the man. He never said I love you back. Say you love me? That’s what he said. But why would he say that if he didn’t love me? What about the note he left calling me the most beautiful person he’s ever known? What about the straw wrapper bracelet? He kept it. What a nothing thing that I made. What a nothing thing that he kept.

I refuse to believe we’re still on opposite sides, but I also have a habit of ignoring reality.”

Naomi fears that everything she’s learned and all the change she and Nicholas have experienced isn’t enough to make a difference, and she obsesses over all the ways their relationship could still fall apart—an emotional regression to her prior fears. The self-awareness inherent in this passage evidences Naomi’s growth and allows her to regain perspective despite her worries.