The Quiet of an Unspoken Yes

I stand where the ivy meets the iron gate, and the afternoon light lays itself across my knees like a slow promise. The grey sweater is warm; the ribbon at my collar is tied just so, as if I had all day to prepare for nothing in particular.

He will pass this corner at three, or he will not. I have stopped counting. Once I used to check my phone, to rehearse a sentence that would make him stay. Now I only watch the leaves tremble and let the wind decide what belongs to us and what does not.

When he finally walks by, he does not stop. He only slows, his eyes meeting mine for a breath long enough to be a whole season. I do not wave. I do not smile wider than my heart allows. The distance between us stays exactly as it is, and in that stillness something warm settles into my chest like tea steeping in silence.

Love, I have learned, is not the chase. It is the quiet corner where two people can exist without demanding anything of each other, and yet everything is already enough.

Editor: The Tea Room