Tangled Yarn

“Tell me a secret,” she whispered as the two of them lay under their white comforter, pretending to shield themselves from the world. All they could ever block out was the moonlight streaming through their only window.

(Really, though, it was the unnaturally bright overhead lights that their neighbors across the street always forgot to turn off, but she likes to remember it as moonlight).

“Don’t you think you know all my secrets by now?” they whispered back.

She didn’t say anything, just waited because she knew they always longed to fit the silence in conversation, always wanted to truly, completely answer a question.

They sighed, a playful sigh, one that brought a light to their face despite the sound, despite the darkness under the covers.

(She can't remember the words they exchanged, all these years later. She's sure it was dull and boring and yet they were dazzled by each other.)

Slowly, their whispers turned to snoring, turned to fluttering eyelids taking in the gradual light, turned to blaring alarm clocks, and blink and you'll miss it chirping of birds, and the world came back to greet them.

They fell out from under their covers, and in a couple years out of love.

But the moments she comes back to are always these. Not the two month backpacking trip they took across the Andes or the lavish joint thirtieth birthday party they shared with everyone that loved them — it’s these moments. These are the ones she can’t get back.