Tell Me How You Feel

By DW

“Tell me how you feel,” she said, a whisper in the darkness, “Tell me you love me.”
“You are a miracle.” He replied. “For you to be here, for us to be like this… After all this time, I’d forgotten how to be with another person…’
“But?”
“But, I’m afraid. Of you. Of needing you. That you’ll go. That you’ll stay. So, I try not to think about it. I just revel in your very presence.” She couldn’t see his eyes, read his face, so the words flowed from his heart. The truth of the pain of years of being alone.
“I’m no miracle. I just love you.”
He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. To believe her was to invite madness and despair if she ever left. Not to believe was to be damned to spend the rest of eternity alone.
He thought of how long he had waited for someone like her…no, he had waited and prayed for her. But, could he tell her that? Did she even care about that? Was it what she needed to hear?
She had so many wonderful things ahead of her. He felt that anything wonderful was far behind him. Sometimes, he knew the greatest joy in her presence, other times, he felt he was just leeching away her youth.
It was better, he thought, before she came, when I had forgotten. Better by far to have never seen the sun than to have one ray of light and hope shining in my face.