We sat at the table, across from each other pretending the space between us was something other than dreaded silence.
"I miss you," she said, finally, without looking up.
"Yeah," I replied, even though I hadn't. What I missed wasn't her, but the way things used to be, before we tried to say what we felt or thought.
We used to talk for hours. About nothing, really. About books that we wanted to share, bad movies, about work and shitty bosses. Now, we barely knew what to say.
I could tell she was still trying, I was trying too. But it wasn't the kind of trying that fixed anything, still to much unsaid and unfinished. It just sat there, like an old bruise that never quite healed.
"You ever think about us?" she asked.
I did. But it wasn't the way she wanted me to.
"Sometimes" I said.
She took a sip of her coffee, her lips barely touching the rim. We were playing a game neither of us knew how to win. I thought about the night we kissed for the first time, the way her hair fell in her face, how she laughed like it meant something. Now she laughed with caution, with a kind of sadness that was worse than the silence.
"We were better as friends, huh?" she said, almost like she was trying to convince herself.
"Probably." Half truths
She nodded, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, but it didn't reach her eyes. We both knew better, but knowing better never fixed a damn thing.
We used to be something good or so I thought. Now, we were just two people sitting here together but not really, forcing time together for a friendship that was, pretending the space between us didn't hurt.
But it did.
It always would.
YOU ARE READING
Life in the mundane
Short StoryOne shot scene (in a series of shorts with no connection) written over the last decade, about longing, one sided love, people observations and hoping to find courage to move forward
