Surprise
"Did you bring donuts?"
She asks this without looking up at you. She's curled up on the couch, nose buried in a textbook. There is no "Good morning!" or "Hey, love, you were up early!" or "Is it warm out today? I heard it's going to be a scorcher."
Only, "Did you bring donuts?"
In another life, in another time, you'd be annoyed. Maybe hurt, you'd feel taken for granted. But today you are practically giddy. Giddy, because this isn't another life, this isn't a different time.
There was a time, when she looked up every single time you walked through the doorway, every single time your key turned in the lock. There was a time her eyes were pinned on you. And every single time, no matter what expression her face held, there was surprise in her eyes.
Surprise because you came back after she caught you off guard with a kiss and a misunderstanding. Surprise because you came back after she disassembled your sense of self. Surprise because you had the guts to come back after the lies you'd told, after the mistakes you'd made. Surprise because you came back after the terrors you'd seen, after you saw her wasting away. Surprise that you were walking through her door again, still.
Sometimes it was buried so deep beneath joy or rage, anyone else would have missed it. But that surprise was meant for you, and you saw it, every single time.
What do you do when the girl you love doesn't trust you, when every time you walk out the door, she assumes (in some deep dark injured part of her heart) that you are not coming back?
You keep coming back. Over and over and over again, you walk through her door. You pretend that there is nothing surprising about it. You pretend you didn't even consider not returning. You pretend the temptation to run like hell isn't stuck to you like static cling.
And over time, you are pretending less and less. Each time you walk out of the door, you doubt your own return a little less. And each time you walk through the door again, you are a little less surprised at yourself.
Coming back, loving her, being faithful feels a little less reckless.
And then one day you're not pretending at all. One day you walk out the door and you know, come hell or high water, you're coming back.
And that day, when you walk back through the door, she doesn't look surprised.
Now, in this life and in this time, she doesn't look up when you walk through the door. She doesn't have to look, because she knows it's you. It's always you, and you're both quite certain it will always be you.
"Did you bring donuts?"
You toss the greasy paper bag onto her lap as you pass her on your way to the kitchen, returning a moment later with mugs of coffee. Plopping down onto the couch, you pull her legs into your lap, but she tugs them out of your grasp quickly. She swivels around until she is sitting next to you, shoulder to shoulder and thigh flush against thigh.
She tears the paper bag open so it lies like a placemat, breaks both donuts in two, and hands you half of each. She turns suddenly and pecks your cheek, and you're practically humming with the comfort of it all. Curled up like a sleepy puppy in the warmth of this routine.
You riffle through the newspaper, in search of the crossword (for you) and the comics (for her). Grinning, foot tapping lightly against yours, she reaches across you to dunk her donut in your cup of coffee (she hates crumbs at the bottom of her mug).