tonight with words unspoken

you say that I'm the only one

but will my heart be broken

when the night meets the morning sun?

HIS

"She has expressed the need to 'think about it'. A week has passed, and she has not raised the issue again."

"Have you?"

"I am attempting to comply with her wishes."

"Nothing more?"

"I believe 'forcing the issue' will provoke her."

"Provoke her to do what?"

"To say no, definitively."

"To your suggestion?"

"To everything."

"You've told me in previous sessions that you've assured her repeatedly that she can discuss anything, that nothing she could say could change what's between you. Do you think she doesn't believe that?"

"She knows I cannot lie. It is a fact of my existence. I believe she is withholding her feelings to spare me."

"To spare you from what? She must know you can't be hurt, if she knows you can't lie."

"She is more resistant to some facts than others. As I cannot lie, she cannot believe."

"So you believe it's in her nature?"

"I believe it is in her deepest need to protect herself."

"Let's deal in practical options. How do you think you might get her to explore her uncertainty with you?"

"By expressing it in terms she can understand."

"And what's interfering with this?"

"The fact that I cannot."

"That you cannot what?"

"Understand. Not fully."

"You've said that the possibility that she might 'say no to everything' is preventing you from pressing the issue. Why exactly is that?"

"I do not wish to exist without her."

"Perhaps that's the best place to begin, then."

HERS

"How do I make him understand?"

"Understand what?"

"That what he thinks is a great idea could tear up everything?"

"And how is that?"

"Come on. You know how."

"Why don't you tell me how you see it."

"Slick, aren't you. Okay, things are as they are because of who we are. Change that, you change everything."

"How so?"

"We live in analogs. Everything we are to each other has been built upon that. And when they're no longer necessary, then what?"

"You tell me… then what?"

"Everything's different. Everything we know, everything we live with, all of the variables that fuck up the lives of others suddenly become possible."

"Variables?"

"You know what I mean."

"Tell me."

"He says that all the time. He's said it to me over and over for a week now, waiting. 'Tell me'. Like I have it all figured out and I'm keeping it to myself on purpose."

"Why not tell him you haven't gotten it all figured out? Odds are he hasn't either."

"But he's the one with all the cards. He's the one whose decision will change everything."

"You argue with logic, but I sense fear. Change can be disturbing, but what do you fear most about his potential change?"

"Potential? Get real, this isn't potential. It's a fucking paradigm shift."

"You both have described your relationship in the same way. A paradigm shift. A very positive one, for both of you."

"Yeah well not all paradigm shifts are positive. Just ask Hugh."

"You're evading the question."

"Which one?"

"What frightens you most about the possibility presented to you? Where you've struggled for analog, there can be emotion. Where he's been capable of the behavior and the analogy, now he will be capable of love."

"That's just it. What if, when he's 'capable'… he doesn't love me?"