Do You Think of Me?

My phone buzzed on the table beside me, our silent dinner creating an empty space for the sound to echo more than it should have.

“You need to check that?” Antonio asked me as he took a bite of his chicken.

“Sorry, I thought it was on Do Not Disturb,” I smiled politely as I glanced at the screen. I hated that I apologized for such stupid things and constantly reminded myself that not everything was my fault.

“Do you ever think of me?” the text read.

The words sat like a pregnant rain cloud about to burst, and I heard myself quietly gasp at the site of it.

“Everything OK?” he asked, clearly not that interested in the answer.

“Yep, just a work notification,” I smiled, properly placed my phone on Do Not Disturb, and jammed it between my right thigh and the chair beneath it.

We continued with the meal until its natural conclusion, the sound of our utensils the only conversation existing between us.

I longed to know what was happening on my phone while I ignored it.

After Antonio had completed his evening shower and fell asleep without so much as a goodnight, I snuck downstairs in the dark.

The original text sat alone on the screen, only a number to identify it.

But I knew who it was.

“Of course I do,” was my first response and I quickly hit send. “Why are you texting me?” came quickly behind it.

“I messaged you on WhatsApp and you didn’t respond,” he wrote, “for 3 days.”

It was true. I had abandoned him in the name of guilt and decency. But if I was being honest, I was simply testing myself to see if I could. I didn’t believe I was able to exist without him, his presence becoming woven into my fabric, and I had no idea what to do with it.

I hadn’t chased it, expected it, understood it.

Yet here he was, every perfect piece of him.

“I’m sorry,” I responded.

I didn’t know what to say.

“Can I see you?” he immediately typed.

I took a deep breath, my skin was tingling as I smiled at the tiny device.

“No,” I wrote, disappointing myself.

“Why?”

I didn’t have a reason, at least not a good one. I had run through this scenario a million times in my head and I never solved it. The reality is it wasn’t a puzzle or a problem, it was simply a gift I was unable to accept.

“I don’t know.” I couldn’t lie to him.

“I miss you so much I can’t focus. My bed feels cold and cavernous. I need you to look at me and smile so my skin can breathe and my heart can stop searching for you.”

I wanted to cry. It was taking everything in me not to run into the night in my giant oversized t-shirt and boxer shorts, my bare feet pushing the gas pedal of my car a little too enthusiastically as I flew toward him.

“I need a week,” I responded. “I just need some time.”

“You can have as long as you need. I’ll wait for you until you tell me to stop, and probably even beyond that. I need you in my life more than anything.”

“More than chocolate? Whiskey? Jiu Jitsu?” I added a smiley emoji to show him I was trying to lighten the mood.

“Yes.”

My heart was racing in my chest, my brain a scrambled mess of shoulds and coulds.

I began to type and quickly deleted my response. I had so many things to say, yet I could not force myself to type the words. I wanted to give him what he needed, everything he longed for, but I couldn’t.

“I just want to know that when you sip your coffee and look out the window beyond your desk you remember when we first spoke, the way I stumbled over my words when our eyes met. Everything changed for me in that moment in ways I hadn’t expected. I didn’t know the world could feel like this, that I was capable of loving someone the way I do you.”

He said it. Love.

I trembled in the dark, my toes shoved under the couch cushion.

Suddenly I heard footsteps above and turned my phone upside down on my abdomen. He was awake, would he notice I wasn’t there? Would it even phase him?

“I’ll message you tomorrow. I promise,” I quickly typed. Pausing to wait for a response.

“I’ll be waiting. xx”

I considered deleting the texts, then found I was unable to. His words were so sweet, spoken straight into the center of my being like I had written them myself.

I couldn’t erase him, I simply didn’t want to.

Instead, I changed my password, shut my phone down completely, and went upstairs to bed.

It would all hurt less if I just went to sleep.