The Question

I've started having conversations with her, in my head.

About you. About what it was all about.

I remember a question. It doesn't matter who asked me, or when. More than one person, on more than one occasion. It matters that it comes back to me now, in these last few days. Since I met the new girl in your life.

You're allowed hate her a little bit, my friend said.

I know, I said, as I watched her put her hand on your chest. But I don't.

I feel happy. I didn't expect to feel like that.

But the question keeps coming back.

So I've been talking to her, as I walk to the beach, or make lunch. There are things that I want to talk to her about, things I didn't expect to feel. About how watching you fall in love, watching you try to be a better person for her, has been a wonderful thing. About how it has made the world seem brighter, somehow. About how it has given me a faith in love.

And about how the question has been puzzling me.

Have you ever been in love?

No. I haven't.

Then why? Why did I want you so much? Why did I stay? Why did I try again, and again?

And it's in the moments before I get in to bed one evening, as I'm asking her for answers, that I get it. And like all true answers, it is too simple to be believable. It's an answer I should have already known.

It was because I wanted you to like me more than anyone else.

That's what it was about. That's what it has always been about. With you, and the others before. This is me; someone who needs to be liked. Who needs it desperately.

That need, it gets in the way. I don't want that any more.

Have you ever been in love?

No.

How do you know?

Because I have feelings I haven't yet felt, like darkened rooms I pass by in the far wing of the house, dust-sheeted. I can see the shape of them, waiting in the dark.

Waiting to be lived in. Waiting for the switch to be thrown.

And this is the faith she and you have given me. That one day it will.