My boyfriend wanted to go on vacation. He told me about a resort in Florida where he'd gone with his grandparents as a child, an old-school resort where people go year after year with a cold spring so clear you can see your feet all the way to the bottom, so clear and so cold. And you can swim with the manatee and alligators, he said, but I shouldn't worry—alligators don't ever bother people. When you get in the water, though, be sure to splash around to make your presence known.

I hated the sound of it and I hated the website. I could tell just what kind of place it was: a place where fond memories should remain.

But I agreed because I wanted to prove to him that it wasn't how he remembered it, that it wasn't the lovely old cold spring of his youth. Plus he had no money and I had to pay for everything so when it went badly I could feel doubly wronged.

The summer hadn't been as easy as we thought it would be. It hadn't been easy at all. Every day he went to work while I had hours and hours of nothing but time because I didn't work during the summer, hadn't in years. I walked my dog. I swam and went to the grocery store, watched the TV shows we didn't watch together. I did other things, too, but I didn't have as much to show for it as he would have liked when he got home. This is the problem with relationships: people want evidence, but most of the things you do can't be seen.

And so we went. There were hardships right off: standstill traffic coupled with a torrential downpour, an overnight stay at a place I don't even want to get into—paid too much, had to drive too far off course—a dark mood over everything because we were the kind of people who nursed our dark moods, who wanted to see how dark they could get and whether the other person would put up with it. It was a terrible match. Even in the first few weeks the signs were so glaring I recognized them in the midst of falling in love.

I still wanted to fall in love, though, and figure it was the same for him. There are so few chances and so you take them.

The resort was full of grandparents and grandchildren. The bathroom was tiny, nowhere to place a toothbrush or a bottle of face wash. Our room was right by the elevator and something clanked all night long so I downloaded an app on my phone that played a heartbeat, a boat swaying in water, Tibetan singing bowls.

In other words, I had won.

All the while, he insisted that the place was still nice, talked about the history of it. We set up a bar on a chair. Walked around the lobby and watched people play chess, sat in a cavernous restaurant alone. He wanted us to have a lovely time in a place that he had once loved but it was the kind of subpar trip you come to expect as a child, the high ceilings and wide lawns enough to convince you it is something special.

If I had told him no, if I'd said no. If I'd alleged sickness or come right out with it, spelled it all out. If I had said let's get the fuck out of here the moment he'd walked out into the cloudy water and looked down at his feet, said it was just as cold as he remembered.

Mary Miller is the author of a novel, The Last Days of California. Her new collection of stories, Always Happy Hour, is an Editors' Pick at Oprah.com.

Read Abagail Guinn's 2 ½ Questions interview with Mary.

Detail of collage on main page courtesy of Mariana Fossatti.

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