Adronitis, n

We both suffered from this, I think. You more than me.

You always seemed to be watching me, watching the things that I did and the things that I didn't do, logging into your memory repeated patterns or actions – and frowning. I pretended not to notice, of course, and answered every personal or unusual or otherwise question you asked me with faked naivety to preserve your dignity. You wanted to learn quickly. I was more patient; learning about you from the way you learned about me.

"Adronitis," you said, giving me a word for what you were feeling, giving me an excuse for the way you were behaving. It sounded like a disease. "We're getting old, and I don't want to waste my life."

"We're not old," I said. "We have decades."

"Maybe. What's the most embarrassing thing that has happened to you?"

"Well…"

Once, you had chalked it up to not wanting to be new and awkward with each other, seeing as we'd known one another long enough that we should've been old and comfortable and weary of each other. You wanted to start in the middle, in the core – to the heart of the matter, so to speak – and work ourselves out. Another time you said that it was because it felt like you already knew me from what you'd seen at school, and what had happened during the war - all the prejudices that you had made against me in all that time – and that was wrong. That wasn't who I was. You needed to erase that predetermined image of me as quickly as possible, so that it didn't poison anything.

I think it was because all our friends were married already. I think it was because you enjoyed the married feeling. I think it was because you couldn't stand to not understand something as soon as you crossed its path.

I think it was because you brought me something that I hated on my birthday.