Only the Plates are Broken

"I already told you I don't want to argue right now," Candace voiced from across the kitchen. "Can you please just stop?"

Matthew tisked and the breath through his teeth seemed to raise Candace's blood pressure from across the room. "Fine," Matthew said as he pushed in his chair. "but I really think you're doing yourself a disservice by not even knowing why you support what you claim. My only goal is to discover absolute truth, and to know it you must be able to dig deep within yourself and defend your values against reason. I promise you are closing yourself off to real growth here."

Candace rolled her eyes with her back to the table as she began washing the dishes from dinner. She had spent hours cutting and roasting and slow simmering, and had absolutely no interest in entertaining Matthew's contrarian behaviors. She was already upset with him because he had come home within minutes of her finishing and added a generous amount of cayenne and ginger without consultation, changing the entire character of the dish. If he hadn't waltzed in and overpowered the whole meal with aggressive flavors, Candace would have served an exquisitely sautéed filet of salmon with delicately roasted carrots, broccolini, and brussel sprouts, topped with a perfectly balanced green simmer sauce she had been perfecting all day. That's just the way that Matthew was. Loud, overwhelming, and obnoxious levels of flavor that he preferred to describe as "eccentric." Candace struggled to recall a single thing she liked about him as she scraped away at a fish scale that clung to his plate. It was as if everything he touched lived to defy her in some way.

At that moment, Matthew began to pick at the strings of his guitar and the sound of his voice practicing the same notes over and over again as he struggled through a song he was writing carried from the couch to the sink where Candace was working. Each time he started his song over, Candace's sponge would slip from the defiant fish scale and cold water would splash onto her shirt in a way that felt like a giant "screw you" from the universe. "If he plays the same line over one more time..." she thought, but was interrupted when he started to sing a new verse.

"I'm just a poor boy, playing the advocate... But she's easy mad, easy go, little dumb, little know..."

That was the final straw for Candace. It was one thing to sing hurtful things about her, but a whole other offence to do it to the tune of a Queen song. If there was ever a band Candace hated, it was Queen. She was willing to die on that hill, and this only intensified her hatred for both the band and the man sitting on her couch.

"Get. The. Fuck. Off. Of. My. Couch." She said in a low voice.

"What?" Matthew replied half in shock and half in confusion, as if he had misheard.

"I just told you to get the fuck off of my couch. Get out of my house. Now!" Candace was yelling now.

"What the hell is wrong with you Candace?" Matthew raised his voice, "Is this about earlier? We don't have to argue if you don't want to. I just think it's healthy to play Devil's advocate someti- "

Candace cut him off, throwing things that belonged to him across the room. "Would you just shut up?!" She implored. "Just shut up!" The little ball of rage that lived in the pit of her stomach had tripled in size and moved to her head. She felt dizzy with rage, almost as if she couldn't see straight, and felt completely out of control of her own actions and words and emotions. A plate smashed against the wall only inches from Matthew's head. All she knew was hatred, and she was going to make sure he felt it too.