The Germaphobe Kneels In Dirt

For seven years, Erica has bent her life around Calvin, a severe germaphobe who keeps her ten feet away, wipes down everything she touches, and proposes by tossing the ring box onto her lap rather than kneel on a dirty floor. She believes him when he says he is fighting his own biology to love her.

Then their apartment catches fire. Calvin bursts in, but he lifts her cousin Darcy into his arms and shuts the door on Erica, telling her she is too dirty. She wakes in the hospital with third-degree burns across her back, having shielded Darcy from the flames. When Calvin finally appears, he stands closer to her than ever before, only to defend Darcy and call his abandonment a reflex.

Erica ends the engagement. Discharged and still healing, she returns to the apartment to find her belongings dumped on the pavement and Calvin seated with Darcy, asking whether she sanitized before coming in.