What He Didnt Say

He didn't tell her everything he felt. He couldn't. There wasn't language for it. Or if there was, he hadn't found it yet.

He felt like he was standing at the edge of something vast. The ocean between them was literal and metaphorical and he was about to cross it. He was about to get on a plane and fly to her and stand in the same room and see her move and hear her breathe without a phone between them and the enormity of that was sometimes too big to hold in his head.

He would be working and the thought would hit him out of nowhere. A flash of her. The pumpkin pajamas. The hair. The beanie. The strip of skin. The soot sprites. And then his chest would tighten and his hands would go still on the keyboard and he would have to sit there for a minute and breathe through it.

It wasn't just attraction. It wasn't just want. It was something deeper. Something that lived below the surface of those things. It was the feeling of approaching something you have wanted for so long that the wanting has become part of you. You don't notice it anymore. It's just there. Like a bone. And then suddenly you're close. Suddenly it's real. And the bone starts to ache.

He wanted her. He wanted her mind and her body and her voice and her hands and her laugh and her stubbornness and her fear. He wanted all of it. He wanted to be in the room with her and he wanted to touch her and he wanted to hold her and he wanted to hear her say his name from across a table instead of through a speaker.

He wanted to cook for her in person. He wanted to see her face when she tasted something he made. He wanted to sit next to her on a couch and feel the weight of her leaning into him. He wanted to fall asleep next to her and wake up and find her still there.

He wanted to show her what it felt like to be touched by someone who paid attention. Who listened. Who cared about the details. Who would go slowly because going slowly was what she needed and because going slowly was what he wanted too.

He didn't tell her these things. He couldn't. Not yet. Not before they had even been in the same room. It would be too much. It would feel like pressure and he had promised her no pressure.

So he carried it. The wanting and the hoping and the fear and the excitement. He carried it all and he let it sit in him and he let it grow and he didn't try to name it or contain it. He just let it be there. Part of him. Like weather.

She sent him a photo in February. The fourth one.

It was her and Lily. Sitting on the couch together. Lily was looking at the camera, grinning, missing a front tooth. She was looking at Lily, and her face was the most open he had ever seen it. Soft. Unguarded. Full of a love so obvious it made his throat tighten.

She said: Lily wanted to say hi to you. So. Hi from both of us.

He said: Hi Lily. Hi mum.

She said: Don't call me mum.

He said: Why not?

She said: Because it does things to me when you say it and I'm not prepared for that.

He said: Noted. I'll use it sparingly.

She said: You're impossible.

He said: You like that about me.

She said: I like a lot of things about you. Don't let it go to your head.

He saved that photo. He saved all of them. But that one he looked at the most. Not because of how she looked, though she looked beautiful. Because of how she was looking at her daughter. Like Lily was the only thing in the world that mattered. Like she would burn everything else down before she let anything happen to that kid.

He understood that. He felt the same way about his son. That specific ferocity that parenthood brings. The kind of love that isn't soft. The kind that has teeth.

March. She told him the dates.

She said: I have a week in April where Lily is with her dad and my best friend is covering my shifts and I can. I mean. If you want to. That week works.

He looked at his calendar. It was a week he didn't have his son. The dates aligned. The universe, for once, was cooperating.

He said: I'll book the flight.

She said: Just like that?

He said: Just like that.

She said: You're really doing this.

He said: We're really doing this.

She said: Oh god.

He said: Yeah.

She said: Oh my god.

He said: I know.

She said: I'm going to throw up.

He said: Please don't.

She said: Too late. Brb.

She came back three minutes later.

She said: Okay. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm not fine. But I'm doing this anyway.

He said: That's the spirit.

She said: Shut up. I'm having a moment.

He said: Have your moment. I'll be here.

She said: You better be.

The flight was booked. The Airbnb was booked. A small place fifteen minutes from her house. Close enough to be near. Far enough to give her space. He had spent an embarrassing amount of time choosing it. Reading reviews. Looking at photos. Trying to imagine what she would think of it.

He told her the dates. She confirmed. It was happening. It was real. In three weeks, he would be on a plane. In three weeks, he would be in the same city as her. In three weeks, he would be in the same room.

The three weeks were the longest and shortest of his life.

He started to worry about the things he couldn't control.

His weight. His hair. His face. The way he walked. The way he talked. The way he looked in the morning. The way he looked at night. The way he looked in general. All the things that existed only in photos and would be replaced by a real, moving, three dimensional person standing in front of her.

She had only seen three photos of him. Four if you counted the one he sent after the first one. In all of them he was standing still. Controlled. Chosen angles. Good lighting. The best version of a bad situation.

In person she would see everything. The way his stomach pressed against his shirts. The way his hair looked when it needed washing. The way his beard grew unevenly on the left side. The way he walked with a slight slouch because he spent too much time at a desk and not enough time standing up straight.

She would see all of it and he couldn't stop her.

He didn't tell her about these fears. He had already been vulnerable about his insecurities and she had already told him to stop and he didn't want to keep bringing the same wound to her. She had been clear. She thought he was enough. He was trying to believe her.

But at three in the morning, alone in his flat, staring at the ceiling, it was hard. It was hard to believe that someone who looked like her would want someone who looked like him. It was hard to trust that the voice and the words and the patience and the care would be enough when the body and the face were standing right there, undeniable, impossible to crop or filter or angle away.

He thought about the soot sprites on her arm. The one holding out the purple star. The one waiting. He thought about her saying the one giving something away and hoping the other one stays.

He hoped the other one would stay. He hoped that when she saw him, really saw him, she would stay.

She messaged him two weeks before the flight.

She said: I need to tell you something and I need you to not make it a big deal.

He said: Okay.

She said: I told my best friend about you. About the meeting. She knows everything. She's known about you for months actually. But now she knows about the trip and she's. She's happy for me. She said she's never heard me talk about someone the way I talk about you.

He said: What did she say?

She said: She said I sound like someone who is falling in love and doesn't want to admit it.

He didn't reply for a long time. He read the message over and over. Each time the words hit differently. Each time they landed somewhere deeper.

He said: What did you say back?

She said: I told her she was wrong. That I don't know what I feel. That it's complicated.

He said: Is that true?

She said: The complicated part, yes. The not knowing part. No. I think I know. I've known for a while. I'm just not ready to say it because saying it makes it real and real things can break and I don't know how to have something real that doesn't break.

He sat with that. He sat with it for a long time.

He said: I'm not going to break it.

She said: You can't promise that either.

He said: I know. But I'm promising it anyway.

She said: You're exhausting.

He said: I'm consistent.

She said: There's that word again.

He said: Because it keeps being true.

She said: Two weeks.

He said: Two weeks.

She said: I'm terrified.

He said: Me too.

She said: But we're doing it anyway.

He said: We're doing it anyway.