i love you




"I love you." He said it in a voice soft with tenderness as he watched me. We were sitting together at the kitchen table, he sipping on coffee and perusing the newspaper, me perched precariously on the table, arranging flowers for a photograph until they were just so. I looked down at my silly position and couldn't help but let out giggle. Then he smiled that special smile, reserved for moments such as these. Crinkling up in the corners, his brown eyes winked lovingly at me once, twice. His coffee--a swirl of a scant half teaspoon of sugar and a liberal splash of cream, no more, no less--was a warm chestnut color and his eyes grew hazy and soft in the steam rising from his coffee cup. It was just an ordinary Friday afternoon, and it wasn't the first time he'd given me that smile, but it all seemed extra special right then. I imagined myself ten, fifteen, twenty years in the future, with memories just like these being the only tether to the tender, young years of my former youth. It was one of those remember me moments, piercingly sweet and fragile in all its fleeting glory. "I'm going to miss this," I think. "One morning I'm going to wake up and wish I could have this moment back." So I turned and smiled back, with a whispered "I love you too."
--
Short (true) story I wrote awhile back. Happy Friday. x