Her

Part 12

 Moments turned into seconds, from seconds to minutes, then they became hours, and from there, days. The days passed in much the same way. I would watch her intently ever moment I could. I would slowly decode her, searching for the answer to every question she asked when she looked at me, into me, when she rested her hand on mine for the briefest of seconds before pulling away, when her eyes slid right over me as if I were once again nonexistent. But now I knew her better, now I could truly see her. I saw the way, as she was trying so hard to ignore me, or at the very least make it seem like she was successfully ignoring me, her eyes would pass over us all unseeingly, preoccupied, her face too concentrated on being expressionless to be natural, her muscles taut and held perfectly in control. The days morphed into weeks. The relentless tick of the white, black and silver clock on the wall measuring the passing time with numbers, while I measured it by how often she looked at me, the intervals of being ignored, and the miraculous instants when her skin would be touching mine. I measured the passing time not in the grains of sand left in the hourglass, but in the sound of her opening the door first thing in the morning, in the words I would write her, in the times I had to watch her walk away, splintering my heart just a bit more each time. At this rate, there would soon be nothing left to love her with. Still, I knew not having a heart wouldn't stop me from loving her. No, not that, nor death. So time passed at a fractured and uneven rate, the best of all moments flitting by, immediately lost forever, the worse periods stretching on for several eternities. Still, I watched, loved, hurt, and was watched. Moment after moment, day after day, look after look.