“Fine. We’ll just talk tomorrow.”

I remember dreading the inconvenience of the situation before experiencing a wash of gratitude that I wasn’t hurt.

I called my roommate, asking if she would bring me a coat because it was Halloween already and the chill of winter was already rushing in.

I had been through this once before, so I approached it with more dignity and less passivity.

"The light had turned red, I needed to get out of the intersection. You plowed into me on a red."

He gaslit and he argued and he seemed more concerned with changing my story than the state of his white Nissan rogue.

I knew I could choose kindness toward this stranger, but I also wasn’t going to let him crush me.

My car, however, had its passenger seat door bent in from trying to make my left turn. I was defeated.

While the busy university neighbourhood watched over the situation like their life depended on it, I had some calls to make.

First to my parents, who were on their way to get me and helped calm my panic and frantic tears.

Next was you.

It was a weekday night and you were already asleep but I knew you’d get my call.

Stuttering and panicked about how I wouldn’t have a car for the next month, I cried on the phone.

Already feeling overwhelmed with an undiagnosed health scare, I blubbered out the situation to you.

Frustration and desperation were two emotions I wasn’t very comfortable with, but I couldn’t bottle them up anymore.

So I asked you to come.

I asked you to be there.

You said you had work in the morning.

You had to be up early.

The conversation lasted less than five minutes.

I don’t think I even tried begging.

And as I stood in the freezing cold outside a local pizza joint with strangers feeding me glances of pity and concern,

I pushed down this terrifying feeling boiling in my blood that you weren't being supportive enough.

and this wasn't enough.

All of the relationship books say that you should watch how someone reacts in crisis to know who they really are. To see their values and intentions, and get an idea of how they may impact you.

The problem was, the way you acted in crises when I met you was different than you were acting now.

Inevitably, you were changing.

Preventable, though, was you changing without me.

I believe that we get to make the choice to grow alongside the people in our lives.

It's either a commitment that we make each day, or we deal with the consequences of remaining indifferent and risk losing the people we love.

I pushed down the growing epiphany that not being supported through such a scary, difficult night was unacceptable to me.

My family and friends saw it, though, and I wish I hadn’t owned your inability to be there as my issue, and stood up for you.

Things worked out.

We were fine for many months - and I got a new, used car and clean bill of health within a few weeks or so.

But that feeling I ignored was coming from my gut, and it wasn’t going away.

I don’t blame you for changing, that’s the way this life works.

But I do know better now than to assume that someone can grow alongside me just because they love me.

This was the first night of many that I would battle with the tension of you and I becoming different people, but desperately wanting to stay the same, so we would still fit.

I thought I could just keep dismissing these feelings because I knew that you would be there again on a good day.

But in the back of my mind… that persistent voice kept wondering why you weren’t there on the bad days, too.

And why, more importantly, I was letting that happen.

“Fine. We’ll just talk tomorrow,” I said.

Over and over again.