Love and Other Words

“Favorite word?” he whispers.

I don’t even hesitate: “You.”

“I’ve been waiting for you to come home for eleven years. I’ll go anywhere you go.”

It was just so much easier to feel nothing instead.

“Favorite word?” he whispers.

I don’t even hesitate: “You.”

Maybe I would have run into your arms.

I hate that this is opening old wounds, but I hate even more that it’s making fresh ones.

Time. I knew well enough that time numbed certain things—even death.

“There you are,” he says. “Come back to me. Where did you go?”

At least this way he’ll see how loved he was.

It’s these tiny reminders that hurt, the tiny moments where you think—let me just call out to him.