Dear W.,
You told me your darkest secret. And now you won’t look at me. You’re avoiding me, and it’s disturbing. And it’s surreal.
I didn’t ask for this confidence. I didn’t know. It was that intimate moment we shared, wasn’t it? It was that thing that happens when two are together in a silence that holds them and binds them with invisible glue. The closer they come, the less they see one another.
You could’ve held your tongue. But you wanted to tell. Needed… to tell. Your secret was too heavy a load to bear. You needed my arms so you could stay afloat. Or was that just a desire for you to share the burden… the blame?
Now we exchange hellos with measured degrees of regulation. I, with a halting smile. You, with a tremor in your hands.
Will I never glimpse my smile in your eyes again? Will your fingers always rattle at the sight of my approach? Will you never acknowledge that I might forget? Maybe? One day?
But, the harder I try to forget, the stronger your confession rings inside my bones.
Yours,
N.
