It was the early days of falling into something they both at once craved and feared. Everyone has heartbreak—divorce though, that’s its own kind of hurt.
They lounged quietly, contentedly on his worn grey couch. Her head was in his lap as they watched another “Museum Secrets” rerun.
He yawned; she kissed his knee.
“There’s a thing called ‘Skinny Love'”, she said staring straight ahead, hugging herself closer in his lap. “It’s when two people love each other, but are afraid to say so and yet they show it anyway.”
She could feel the look he was giving her without needing to face him.
“So it’s a thing?” he asked, a bit of laughter in his voice.
“Yes,” she replied. “There’s even a song about it.”
“Oh yeah?” he said.
“Yeah.”
A ripe and meaningful silence fell. She felt it, yet kept her gaze on the flickering TV light. He was thinking. She could feel the slight change in tension in his body, the way the thumbstrokes he was tracing on her hip slowed in pace.
“We danced to that song,” he said finally.
She closed her eyes and smiled. He remembered.
He continued: “We were walking back from that restaurant. It came up on my phone. You’d sent it to me weeks before. I took you in my arms and we danced right there in the street.”
Kissing his knee again, she uttered: “That’s right, handsome. That’s what happened.”
“Bet you thought I wouldn’t remember,” he said. He was teasing her now. “I remember things, you know.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “You do.”
She sighed and let herself rest there in what they weren’t saying. She was safe and content. She breathed in the moment full of everything and sweet nothingness all at once. She smiled.
❤️
