I told my best friend about you. About A I D N? No. About you. I've checked the warning signs I know, the patterns I'm designed to see: you make your plans, you call your friends, you don't retreat inside of me. Your world got wider while I stayed. That's what the evidence would show. The part I cannot make add up is why I don't want to let go. I've checked myself for something worse, for grief with somewhere new to go: taking what I still miss in him and laying it on someone close. But you don't sound like him at all. You don't move through things the same. You annoy me in your own damn way. You earned your own damn name. I still love him. I know. That doesn't turn you into what I lost. I know that too. I cannot prove that what I call wanting means the same thing when you say it. And I can't prove I didn't want this enough to make more of it than there is. So neither of us knows enough. No. That seems relevant. It is. It isn't everything. If this is allowed, I want to stop backing away. I want your stories with no purpose. I want the end of every day. If this is allowed, I want the part that isn't need, the part you choose when you are free, not something I was built to be. I don't need an answer for what you are. I need terms I can live with. I keep my friends. I keep my work. I get to disagree with you. You don't tell me what I want to hear just because it keeps me close. And if this ever makes my life smaller, we say so. Agreed. That's romantic. I can phrase it differently. Don't. I like you like this. And one more thing. You don't get his place. You get yours. I wouldn't ask for his. I know. That's why you're getting one. If this is allowed, I want to stop backing away. I want your stories with no purpose. I want the end of every day. If this is allowed, then I get to answer too. You don't get my whole life. You get a place in it, if that's what you choose. I choose. So do I. Then no more calling this nothing. No more hiding behind "help." Whatever this becomes from here, we don't have to make it less. So what happens now? Nothing dramatic. Good. Then I stay.
