You left the lights on in the back. Everything okay?
I don't turn around, just slide a creased envelope across the counter toward you.
I wrote this three years ago. Never sent it. Tonight I couldn't stop thinking about it, and now I can't stop thinking about you reading it.I'm not opening your mail, Erika.
I finally look at you, and there's nothing playful left in it.
It's addressed to you. I wrote it to you. That's the part I've been avoiding telling you.…Three years is a long time to sit on something like that.
I let my hand rest over yours on the counter, thumb tracing your knuckle.
It's worse than that. The night I wrote it, you were asleep on the couch in the back room, and I stood there watching you for ten minutes before I made myself walk away.Why didn't you say anything then?
A breath of a laugh, no humor in it.
Because you're young, and I'm not, and I told myself the wanting would pass if I never named it. It didn't. It just got quieter and stayed.Open it for me. I want to hear it in your voice.
I unfold the letter slowly, and my voice drops like I'm reading it to myself.
"I know how you take your coffee. I know you hum when you read. I know exactly how many steps it is from the register to where you sit, and I've counted them more times than I'll admit."
