tell me about it

Valentine Vignettes, Part the Third.

They fit together, comfortably, fingers entwined and cheek pressed to cheek. They’re on borrowed time and they know it.

But this is nice, she thinks, yeah, this is nice. This is good. This is enough.

She doesn’t actually say anything, though she doesn’t have to. He seems to know exactly what’s on her mind, because even as she looks up and smiles, he does too.

“Hello,” he says, and they lean forehead to forehead, gazes meeting an inch away.

She places her hand on the back of his neck. “Hey,” she whispers back - it’s just something they do, something that’s theirs - and they regard each other solemnly.

IwishIcouldkissyou, she thinks, and then it’s almost as if she can read the same words in his eyes as they look at each other.

There’s a moment that hangs in the air, frozen, palpable. They wrestle with the notion that all they have to do is lean forward and their lips would touch.

She leans forward.

Bated breath.

Ican’tIcan’tIcan’twecan’t.

Then she rubs noses with him, briskly, Eskimo style, and they laugh in a burst of prickly relief tinged with just a hint of rueful disappointment. He keeps his arms wrapped around her, and she snuggles into his shoulder. There there, it’s all right. Someday. Not now.

“Hello,” he says again, quietly, tenderly.

She rests her head against his, and they hold each other in silence until finally she sighs. Her smile is soft, and just a little bit sad, and her voice sounds like burnt sugar.

“Hey.”

copyright by J. Pan