Did you notice that I was alone? Did you infer from that brief encounter the depth of loneliness that I had fought into submission? Into something hypothetical, convincing myself that the silence was not my own but rather that of another, more hopeless creature. When you called out to me and I crossed the street, did you wish I was someone else? Someone who could hold on to bitterness and ignore your unspoken attempts at apology? Were you, too, searching for a way out?

You were also alone, but I knew that yours was a momentary solitude. Nights spent scrolling social media had shown me the life you had claimed. A life of travel and conquered mountains that I had so obviously, so unthinkingly, blocked from you.

So when you smiled, I did not smile back. Instead I studied the dirt at my feet and tried to hide my skin. Had you noticed my tan? Had you, too, debated going on the trip we’d planned together, alone? I doubted it. I doubted that I crossed your mind in the way that you plagued mine. While I had spent a week in Greece next to an empty sun bed, you had moved on, searching and then finding the things you wanted from life.

Perhaps you do not see the pain that has been sculpted into my face. Perhaps you don’t care.

When you lean forward to kiss me, do you assume that there have been others? Other lips placed on my cheek in the intervening months, or are you taunting me, aiming for the same spot where I imagine your warmth has not left, renewing that warmth, knowing that it will keep me going, keep me alone, for a great while longer?