Saturday morning I woke up and lay still and let myself think about it.
Not all of it. Pieces. The restaurant quieting around us without my noticing. His hand near mine on the table not touching, that half-inch of air that somehow carried more weight than contact would have. The way he said present and then stopped talking, like the word was enough and he knew it.
It had been a good evening.
That was the problem.
Good like: I'd been fully there and nothing bad had come of it. The kind of evening that doesn't end cleanly it trails behind you, catches on things, wants to mean something.
I didn't have space for what it wanted to mean.
I wasn't there yet.
I got up. Made coffee. Stood at the window with both hands around the mug and started, quietly, to rebuild the walls I'd let down ove
