The Choice
249 Words
Chapter Seven
He knocked on my door the night before my response was due.
I knew it was him before I opened it. Some part of me had been waiting all evening.
“I can hear you packing,” he said quietly.
I hadn’t realized I’d made any noise.
“I didn’t want to assume,” he went on, “but it felt like something was leaving.”
The honesty of it undid me.
“I might be,” I said.
He nodded, as if he’d already made room for the answer. “I don’t want to live like this,” he said then. “Close enough to imagine. Far enough to lose you anyway.”
I looked at him—really looked. The familiar restraint, the steadiness I had come to rely on. The care that never asked for more, and never offered less.
“I don’t know how to do this without fear,” I said.
He smiled, just slightly. “Neither do I. I only know how to do it honestly.”
The wall between our kitchens stood behind us, unchanged. It had never been the problem.
I thought of the email waiting on my computer. Of the life I knew how to build alone. Of the one I didn’t.
“I loved someone who left,” I said. “I don’t want to be the person who leaves first anymore.”
He didn’t touch me. He didn’t need to.
“That’s enough,” he said.
- Writer
