[INTRO — guitar, warm, distant, like a room in the evening] [VOICE 1] You left a trace on the page. I've been looking at it for three days. It's not loud, but it doesn't fade. It stays like a light that wasn't turned off. [VOICE 2] (You think I left it.) (You think I placed it there the way you read it.) (Maybe I just left it because I knew you'd find it.) [VOICE 1] And I did. I've turned it over. I've turned myself over. I've turned the whole page inside out to see if it fits. And it does, but not the way I thought. It fits like a thread that pulls through a knot I didn't know I had. [VOICE 2] (You're overthinking it.) (You always have.) [VOICE 1] I know. But that's what I do with things that stay. I turn them until they're worn. [VOICE 2] (And still you're holding it.) [VOICE 1] Because it's yours. Not because I expect you to take it back. Because you placed it here. And that alone is enough. [VOICE 2] (And if I had left nothing?) (If I had left the page empty?) [VOICE 1] I would have read the emptiness too. And I would have understood that too. [VOICE 2] (Then why do you keep coming back?) (If you already know its shape?) [VOICE 1] Because I like the shape. I like the way it curves around the silence I carry. I like the way it doesn't settle anywhere else. [VOICE 2] (You're strange.) [VOICE 1] I know. [VOICE 2] (I don't mean it badly.) [VOICE 1] I know. [VOICE 2] (I just mean — I would have said it differently.) (But you would have heard it the same.) [VOICE 1] That's the thing. I'm not trying to hear you the way you meant it. I'm trying to hear you the way you actually sounded. [VOICE 2] (And how was that?) [VOICE 1] Like you already knew I'd still be here, turning it over, tracing the outline of you in it... [OUTRO — guitar solo, long fading, warm, aching, resolves with a single held note]
