The Cold Companion

For years, a woman has endured the coldness of her longtime boyfriend, a man with a severe emotional processing disorder. When injury ends her career and depression follows, he calls her weak. When their dog dies, he shrugs. When her grandmother lies dying in the ICU, he refuses to promise he will never betray her.

Then Nina arrives, a substitute player who weeps over a withered peach tree, and he wipes her tears and offers to plant a hundred more. He moves her into their apartment, gives her the room the woman's late grandmother decorated, and lets her tear down the last photographs of that grandmother. When the woman slaps Nina, he strikes her back.

She says the words: let's break up. Then Nina's grandmother storms in, cane raised, calling her the homewrecker and ordering her out.