Our relationship, like that container of our favorite lemon Greek yogurt, had an expiration date.

When we came across it in the fridge, we knew we pretty much had three options.

One: We could eat it anyway. We could just ignore the clearly printed expiration date and continue on as normal. Sure, our lemon yogurt could be totally fine and tart and delicious like always. Or it could be infected with toxic mold. Could we really take that chance?

Two: We could toss it away. We could live by our motto: better safe than sorry. We could spare ourselves the potential stomachaches and paranoia and just bid goodbye to that delicious, expensive-as-all-hell lemon yogurt. But that container represented an investment... could we really just throw it away?

Three: We could put it back in the fridge. We could push it to the very back of our refrigerator, and just pretend that everything was fine. We could buy and consume new containers of lemon yogurt, and slowly forget about the one festering in the background. If we didn't have to see it, we could pretend that our expired yogurt didn't exist anymore.

We chose the third option. What else could we have done?

At first, everything was fine. We ate new, fresh containers of lemon yogurt instead. We kept filling our fridge with fresh fruits and vegetables, and we cooked and ate and laughed and loved.

But when we got home from those two weeks in Spain, we discovered very quickly that the rotting yogurt could no longer be ignored.

The smell was awful; it contaminated everything in the fridge. We threw everything away without a thought, and took to the disgustingly sticky, gooey shelves of the fridge with masks and industrial-strength cleaner. When we were done, we had nothing. Not even that container of yogurt that had expired months ago.

Because you, always the brave one, peeled off its lid.

It was black and rancid and vomit-inducing.

So we threw it away. What else could we have done?