secrets and changes

She called us her best-kept secret, and I suppose that was probably true. It was probably the only secret she managed to keep even from me. Maybe that's for the best. I never understood why I slept on the couch the night we first kissed, when it was raining and we spent forever just kissing in the rain after getting dinner at a dimly lit cafe. We were soaked, and left our clothes hanging in the bathroom and curled up in blankets and towels in front of the TV. I never questioned that it was right of me to wake up at daybreak and go home before she woke up.

Over the years we'd fight, we'd make up, sometimes in the same night. It was a game, but it was her game. I couldn't win. I wasn't sure I wanted to. I didn't really know what it entailed.

But fighting or not we were inseparable and, of course, everyone asked if there was something going on. Sometimes we'd pretend; sometimes we'd just deny it. I wasn't sure what we actually were, so I'd just go with what I felt like at the time. I knew this: I could show up on her doorstep at four in the morning and she'd welcome me in with a smile and put some tea on if I wanted.

I was never sure what changed, or when it happened. We fell apart. It happened just as naturally as anything else did. We ran into each other at the cafe once again, but now the sun was shining and summer was high and the magic was gone. She nodded at me when she saw me and sat down a few tables down, and I finished my sandwich, paid the check and left.