Proximity

He thought about what it would be like to touch her.

Not sexually. Not always. Sometimes just the thought of proximity was enough to undo him. The thought of being in the same room. Standing near her. Close enough to feel her warmth. Close enough to smell her. What did she smell like. He didn't know. He imagined coffee and something floral and the faint trace of weed and whatever shampoo she used and he knew he was probably wrong about all of it but the imagining was its own kind of intimacy.

He thought about what it would be like to sit next to her on a couch. Not touching. Just near. Close enough that if one of them shifted their knees might touch. He thought about how that small accidental contact would feel after a year of nothing. How it would go through him like a current. How he would have to keep his face neutral so she didn't know what it did to him.

He thought about holding her hand. Such a small thing. Such a stupid small thing to want. But he wanted it. He wanted to feel her fingers laced through his. He wanted to know if her hands were warm or cold. He wanted to run his thumb across her knuckles and feel the bones there.

He thought about her falling asleep next to him. Not in a sexual way. Just her body going soft and heavy with sleep beside him. Her breathing changing. Her hand still in his or resting on his chest or curled against her own face the way people sleep when they feel safe. He wanted to be the reason she felt safe enough to sleep.

He thought about mornings. Waking up and she was there. Still asleep. Hair everywhere. The light coming in. The ordinary miracle of another person choosing to be in your space. He wanted that. He wanted it so badly it sat in his chest like a stone.

He told her once. Not everything. But some of it.

It was late. One of those mornings where she was half asleep and he was on his second coffee and the call had been going for an hour without either of them saying much. Just breathing together across the distance.

He said: I think about what it would be like to just be near you. Not doing anything. Not talking even. Just existing in the same room. Hearing you breathe. Knowing you're there.

She said: Yeah?

He said: Yeah. I think about it more than I should probably admit.

She said: What else?

He said: Your hands. I think about your hands a lot. What they would feel like. Whether they're warm or cold.

She said: Cold. Always cold. Everyone complains about it.

He said: I wouldn't complain.

She said: I know you wouldn't. That's the problem.

He said: Why is that a problem?

She said: Because you're too good at this. At saying the right thing. At making me feel like I'm worth something. And I keep waiting for the part where you stop. Where you get tired or bored or you figure out I'm not what you think I am. And you leave. And I'm left holding all these things you said to me like an idiot who believed them.

He was quiet for a long time.

He said: I'm not going to stop.

She said: You can't promise that.

He said: I can. And I am. I'm not going to stop. You're not something I'm going to get tired of. You're not a phase or a distraction or a project. You're the person I want to talk to at the end of every day. You're the person I cook for even though you're not here. You're the person I stay up until four in the morning for even though I'm thirty-eight and my back hurts and I should know better. You're worth all of it. Every lost hour of sleep. Every mile of ocean. All of it.

She was crying. He could hear it. The small hitch in her breathing. The silence that meant she was pressing her hand against her mouth.

He said: Don't hide. Please. Don't hide from me.

She said: I'm not hiding. I'm just. Nobody has ever. You keep saying these things and I keep waiting for the catch and there isn't one and I don't know what to do with that.

He said: There's no catch. There's just me. Telling you the truth. Because you deserve to hear it.

She said: I don't know what I did to deserve you.

He said: You existed. That was enough.

She laughed through the tears. That sound. That laugh. It went through him the way it always did. Like electricity. Like sunlight.

She said: You're ridiculous.

He said: I'm consistent. There's a difference.

She said: You're both. And I. I don't know what to call this. But I know it's something. I know you're something. To me.

He said: That's enough. For now, that's enough.

The days kept passing. The months kept building. And his feelings for her kept growing in ways that surprised him because he thought he had already reached the limit of what he could feel for someone he had never touched.

He was wrong.

There was no limit. The feelings just kept going. Deeper. Wider. More detailed. More specific. He adored the way she talked about her daughter. The fierceness in it. The pride. He adored the way she talked about her best friend. The love that ran through every sentence, unguarded and rare. He adored the way she talked about the restaurant, half complaining and half proud, like it was the worst place in the world and also hers.

He adored the way she wrote when she forgot to be careful. The long winding messages that went everywhere and nowhere. The way her mind worked, associative and quick, jumping from one thought to another like a bird landing on branches. He adored the way she was sharp with people who deserved it and gentle with people who didn't. He adored the way she was with her best friend's son, the patience in it, the tenderness.

He adored her mind. Her voice. Her laugh. Her stubbornness. Her fear. The way she held herself back and the way she let him in anyway, inch by inch, like she was opening a door she had locked a long time ago and the hinges were rusted and stiff but she was trying.

He adored her and the adoration was becoming something bigger. Something that had its own gravity. Something that pulled him toward her with a force he couldn't have resisted even if he wanted to.

He didn't want to.

He thought she knew. He thought she could feel it in the silences between his words. In the way he remembered everything she said. In the way he asked follow up questions about things she had mentioned weeks ago. In the way he noticed when her mood shifted even through a phone line. In the way he told her she was brilliant and beautiful and worth waiting for and meant it more each time.

He thought she knew and he thought it scared her and he thought she was staying anyway and that staying, that choice to remain in the orbit of something that frightened her, was braver than anything he had ever done.

"So he stayed too. And he adored her. And he waited. And the days passed and the distance remained and the wanting grew and he carried all of it. Not because he had to. Because he chose to. Every single day."