The quiet door

an invented case, written the way I'd write a real one.

Dear R.,

I want you. Only you. I don't know how to tell you, so I'm telling you in ink. The pen doesn't stutter the way I do.

You should know how it looks from here. You text that you're outside, and I take the stairs too fast. You fall asleep on my couch twice a month. I sit in the armchair like a guest in my own evening, counting them like a paycheck. You'd think I'd have gotten over it. I haven't. I'm not going to.

It'd be easier if there were a reason it wouldn't work. There isn't. You're kind, and everybody sees it. You tell me things you don't tell anyone. I keep them all. My trouble: I've been so good at being trusted that it started to look like being close.

Here's the part I keep editing out. I don't want to be your favorite person to talk to. I want to be the one you come home to, badly, on purpose, for years. I don't want to want you; I want you. No one else. Not for a while.

You don't have to answer. I refuse to be fluent about everything except this.

• K.

If there's a letter you can't quite send, write to me: [email protected].