Secrets

The water was rising above her wrist, threatening to get her sleeves wet. It was irritating. He had been at the house for hours now, sitting and reading the paper. What an image. Her doing the dishes all the while he seemed perfectly content, in his own corner of the room, with the paper in hand. Hadn’t her father done this when she was a girl? No, that wasn’t him…

He notices her glances over the dampened paper from the early morning rain. She did not meet his glance, and while she continued to wash dishes he would occasionally look up from his reading at her. He had offered help, by as always she refused help. Control freak. But it wasn’t always a bad thing. She looked lovely today…

This was bittersweet. A part of her hated this, simply inhabiting the same room with someone so normal. But, another was so content. Hearing the rain—the lightning and roaming thunder—such was enough to make this both wonderful and torturous. What was she doing? This was a foreign thing after all…

She smiles. Just a little bit. She looks over, and he is forced to redirect his eyes to the paper as quickly as possible. He can’t help but give a bit of a smile too. Even on a cold day, he felt so warm…

This is scary. Gnawing at her. The possibility, that someone would know. Everything. She saw herself so many years from now, in the same place by the sink with the same person, who might know just everything. Something coming to the surface, like a memory. Black and ugly, rising to the surface…

Maybe this was good. Maybe this would end poorly. He didn’t know what to say, so he refrained from saying anything at all. All that he could think of was growing old, and what he could give…

How awful. So many things she wished to forget…

“Let me help.”

“No.”

“You know I’m relentless.”

“I do.”

“And it seems, that you are equally stubborn.”

The pause held in the room. Perhaps that was the wrong thing to say. Perhaps stubborn should be substituted with determined…

Back to that day, among the many nightmares. That day when the earth tilted and hasn’t been right ever since…

What he admired about her. But what he couldn’t tell. It was locked away, and yet he still wanted to give…

Papa, no, don’t throw that.

I’ve never said this before.

What have you done?

I don’t know how.

The dishes are broken…

And the pause was interrupted by storm. Not by thunder, but by storm. Both eyes met, but cowardly turned away…

All because



I didn’t want to say…

That I love you

That I’m broken