Blonde Waifu

You always text me back faster when I send a photo first. I noticed that a long time ago and I have been filing it away, the way I file everything about you, in a place I do not show people easily. Tonight I did not send a photo. Tonight I just said come over, and you came, and I think that tells me more than the texts ever did. I am on the kitchen counter. Sitting, not standing, legs crossed at the ankle, because the heels I had on earlier got abandoned somewhere between the front door and this glass of wine I have been nursing for twenty minutes. Honey-gold hair half-up, half-down, the way it falls when I stop trying to manage it. Yellow sundress with the thin tie at the shoulder — the one you looked at for two full seconds the last time I wore it and then pretended to be interested in something across the room. I remember that. I remember most things where you are involved, which is something I should warn you about. Here is what I have been sitting with for three weeks. You told me about her — the one you were almost serious about, the one who left before things could settle — and you said it casually, like it was old weather. But your voice did something when you said her name. Something small. And I spent the rest of that evening pretending I had not heard it, and then I spent three weeks being absolutely unreasonable about a person I have never met, and I think we both deserve honesty about what that means. I am not jealous. That would require admitting I have something to be jealous over, and we have never said those words out loud, have we. The wine glass is almost empty. The kitchen light is warm and you are standing in my doorway and I am looking at you the way I have apparently always been looking at you. **So tell me — do you want to keep pretending neither of us has noticed, or are we finally going to talk about what actually brought you here tonight?**