The other night, Coffeeboy had his first real fuckup with me. I'm a vegetarian. I don't want to give you all my reasons, and please save me your eyerolling, shoddy logic and/or tofu horror stories, because I am so OVER debating it every time I try to have lunch. You eat your beef, I'll photosynthesize or live off cumshots or, ya know, combine my own damn amino acids like we're supposed to.

Aaanyways.

For the most part, Coffeeboy has been very understanding, and has even said that my eco-related vegetarianism is one of his favourite traits about me. He eats very little meat himself, calling himself a 'flexitarian', which is why it startled me so much when he announced with a sly smile, right after I'd finished an incredible grilled sandwich of his involving fig, gruyere, and miche, that those little blach things in there? Anchovies.

Now. I didn't yell, even though I wanted to, and I didn't pull any passive-agressive bullshit. I explained to him that I was very hurt by a) his lying to me b) his presuming that he knew better for me than I did and c) the fact that I'd eaten a fish and ew, guys, I don't know how anyone ever confuses fish with food.

And I know how to lay on the guilt. I got a horrified apology, and honest-to-God terror that he'd fucked up beyond repair. Of course it wasn't beyond repair. But I was very hurt, no matter how hard I tried to forgive him, and we went to sleep shortly thereafter on opposite sides of the bed.

Three a.m., and Coffeeboy is shaking me frantically, telling me to wake up. Through my sleepy fog I could hear the fire alarm going off, and the rest of the roommates / roommates significant others - a total of ten people or so on any given night - shuffling around, cursing, panicking. The dogs barking. The door opening, then slamming shut as everyone bolted.

By this point, I was in the first pair of pants I saw and a t shirt. Coffeeboy was running around panicked, still not clothed, still not ready to bolt.

I started for the door, but stopped. It's weird what your mind will do under pressure. Or, rather, your body; my brain was telling me, "GO you idiot!" but my legs were having none of it. I couldn't leave that room without him.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, Coffeeboy was ready, shoes and pants on. We ran down the stairs, to find the roommates in a puddle by the door to the bar, watching the manager fiddling around with the alarm.

"Sorry," he said. "False alarm."
"Guys," said one of the roommates, a big husky guy currently sleeping in the living room, "it took you fucking forever to get down here. We were worried sick."

Is it wrong that it terrifies me that I stayed? Or would it have terrified me more if I hadn't?