The Word-a-day Writing Challenge

Day Thirty-Two: Make Believe

Your caution and my desire maintain a steady gait. 

There is something behind the words I love you, when I say them to you, that even I don't understand. Woven into the nuances of gesture and tone, inflection and accent, there is a story, having less to do with you and more to do with the abiding emptiness within me. I want to call, but I don't know what to say. Call anyway, says my friend, with the answer I want to hear. So I do. Into awkwardness, make believe, and the busy-ness that is your life. I wonder where I stand, lay, fit. into you. We carry out the uncomfortable phone custom of both trying to speak at the same time, leaning into the distance between our quiet breath, listening. You call me Sweet—Hello, Sweet—so I know you are happy to hear from me, but after four minutes and fifty-four seconds you say I love you, I echo, and we hang up. I wanted to say something more, I tell my friend. I wanted there to be something more to say.