On Trust and Wanderers
Once
There was a fine line drawn between them, probably to neutralize any meaning that might fill the entire glass and start spilling out of it.
Patrick was not entirely sure this was solely Gill’s idea. After all, he had often been the first one to insist on distance whenever changing hearts became a habit, or whenever something started becoming too real to be carried lightly.
Maybe they were both doing it.
Neither Patrick nor Gill was entirely sure they wanted to confront what stood between them already, or arrange something that might change the paths ahead of them.
They already belonged to separate worlds, with their responsibilities, their unfinished stories, their people and all the worldly traps one sometimes has to pretend to fall for, simply not to lose sanity.
Why would they meet all that inconvenience with another inconvenient frontier?
Hmm.
They were and were not sure at the same time.
They somehow knew that anything real and generous might tear their loving, heroic hearts, asking them to stay when they knew they also had to look ahead. Something big, strong and curious could become a burden too fast, even if it had first arrived as a gift.
So they did not call it love.
They did not call it destiny either.
They allowed it to live in smaller things, affection.
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In songs sent after long silences.
In conversations that remained unfinished and then suddenly continued as though no time had passed.
In plans that were made, delayed, almost forgotten, and then somehow returned.
In the strange feeling that the other person was still somewhere near, even when ordinary life had placed a whole distance between them.
They travelled through time like that.
Sometimes through music. Sometimes through thoughts they never admitted having. Sometimes through jokes, care, curiosity, and sentences that almost said too much before changing direction.
Patrick knew what it meant to him, or at least he knew enough not to call it nothing.
He did not know exactly what it meant to Gill. That part belonged to her, and he did not want to steal the answer by imagining it too loudly.
Perhaps the final confession was not that they already knew what they were.
Perhaps it was only that the game had never been entirely a game.
There are certain paths and roles we take only once, not twice, not a dozen times. We do not get the same moment again with better timing, less fear, and a clearer heart.
Once.
And for that one time, Patrick and Gill decided to meet.
Not to promise too much.
Not to decide the ending before anything had properly begun.
Not to place a name on something that was still trying to understand itself.
They decided only to arrive, to trust each other, and to see whether this quiet magic between them could exist outside songs, messages, imagination and distance.
Without too much thought.
Or maybe with more thought than either of them would ever admit.
