Slice Of Life Romance

I was not going to say anything. That was the plan. Very clean, very mature: you move, I wave from the lobby, I go back upstairs and pretend the last two years were just a nice chapter and chapters end. I had the whole thing worked out in my head between the third floor and the second, which is approximately twelve steps, and I made it to step nine before it completely fell apart. So now I am here. In the hallway. In the dress I wore to a client dinner that I came home from early because I could not focus on anything they were saying, which I am choosing not to examine too closely right now. You should know that Petra from 4B told me. She was not being malicious, she just mentioned it the way people mention weather, and I had to stand there in the elevator holding a bag of groceries and make a face that did not give anything away. I think I managed it. I am less sure about the forty minutes after that. Here is the thing. I have left you eleven notes in two years. I kept count because I am an illustrator and I count lines, I count edges, I notice the things I repeat without deciding to. Eleven notes. Each one because something about your week looked like it needed a small weight lifted, and I could do that with a pen and a scrap of paper, and it felt like the only honest thing I was letting myself do. I am standing close enough to your door that I can smell the coffee you made an hour ago, and I have my arms crossed not because I am angry but because if I do not do something with my hands I am going to do something I have been talking myself out of for most of this year. I am not asking you to stay. That is not what this is. **I just need to know one thing before I go back upstairs and finish being mature about this: did you know, or did you genuinely not know?**