She smiles at him, a smile that never fails to bring a matching smile to his face.

"Anyway, I'm a bit farther back in the plane, but maybe we should get coffee if you're going to be in town for a few days?"

-Normally, he'd work through the flight, but instead he fingers type her name into his email search, and he remembers. The words. The chats. ( Read more... )

I hear the steps before I see them and smile, adjusting myself, waiting for them to enter the room. Two slow, steady pacers and one much quicker one, occasionally skipping, or possibly trying to climb up the hospital walls, which his mother would not be happy with ( Read more... )

A man stares at his desk. It's a nice desk, mahogany and huge and really probably an unnecessary purchase, but the unmistakable sign of someone that is Doing Well. He stares at the things surrounding the desk in his office - the bookcases, the high school trophies, the row of medals, the plaques and commendations and awards. He stares a bit at the ( Read more... )

The first time was on my birthday, five years ago. Amber had just left me alone for a moment after a lovely day, full of friends and celebration, and I was sitting on our back porch, about to go up after her - a wife who says "I'll be waiting," is an invitation that I had every inclination of accepting. Joshua was already fast asleep, having been ( Read more... )

Looking back at the texts and messages, he sees hints and suggestions from months ago - but for him, it starts on a Monday afternoon ( Read more... )

He just turned eight - a week ago - and he's playing at a soccer game. The team isn't quite competitive enough to have starters and bench warmers, but if it was, he'd probably be a bench warmer ( Read more... )

You met the girl of my dreams, I want to tell him, and now you're getting married to her. You dated her for these last years, and now you're engaged, and soon enough...

It's not my place to judge, to question, to wonder, so I stop that, now. I will keep my peace, as I should: it stopped being my decision over three years ago ( Read more... )

"...for her plea is not for distance and detachment, it is for stasis, a tepid pond for waves to settle and find rest. Perhaps some day, when they are both ready, they will find… -what? She will only know once she gets there."

M: The love is devalued without the relationship, but it's nice to come back after a week of silence and months of estrangement and still be warmly received ( Read more... )

Our lives - mine and yours (and in a way, his) are delineated by two sharp lines, two lines which cut neatly across the line of memories that I have.

I think it's the same for you, isn't it?

At first, there's only the one line, and it segments our lives into Before and AfterIn a clinical sense, an objective sense, the psychologist in me notes how ( Read more... )