BEND, OR — What began as a pleasant weekend evening in the Belnap household quickly soured due to husband Lance's relational ineptitude. Trisha had grown frustrated that he did not realize she wanted him to be quiet and also talk to her and also leave her alone and also come and talk to her.
"I just feel like you don't really listen to the things I'm not saying," Trisha told her husband after catching him standing up from the couch to grab a snack from the fridge, like some kind of clueless buffoon. "Sometimes I wonder who I even married."
Lance defended his actions or maybe lack of actions — he wasn't quite sure — by insisting she showed signs of wanting to be left alone by looking stressed, listening to a podcast, texting her sisters, and telling him, "I want to be left alone."
"You just don't get it," said Trisha, "You never really listen. When I said I wanted to be left alone it meant I wanted you right there by my side while I finished the true-crime podcast and finished an argument with my sister about whose husband is better."
"I don't want to talk about it right now," she added, folding her arms and standing there, staring, just waiting to see what Lance would do, like a Komodo Dragon waiting in the shadows for a heedless young boar to wander too close.
"Babe, I love you," stammered Lance as his eyes darted across her face and body, searching for any scintilla of a clue as to what he should do next.
At publishing time, the couple had been seen still standing there while Trisha awaited Lance's next move.
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