Chapter 21
You said the smell of breakfast cooking woke you up as you sank down in a chair at the dining table. I didn't tell you, but I rarely get up anymore in the mornings to make myself breakfast; you're just the right kind of special occasion to inspire me to do it again. I didn't understand how you looked so effortlessly beautiful when you had just gotten out of bed for the day, but it made my mouth dry just looking at you. There was something else too that was making my tongue heavy and my throat tighten, and it came in the form of three words that my heart was sure of but my mouth just wasn't ready to say.
I sat across from you as we ate, and I listened to you speak of various topics, and I tried to chime in to let you know I really was paying attention, but the echo of those three words was so loud in my head that it almost drowned out the sound of your voice. Every time you laughed, every time you spoke my name, every time you looked at me with that soft intensity, those three words pulsed like a heartbeat in my head. I began to find it difficult to even look at you, because I feared that somehow you would hear the battle raging inside me.
I asked you if you would like to go to dinner tonight, and the delight in your eyes and the sweet upward curve of your lips as you accepted the offer made me have to clench my jaw so hard I was afraid I would break a tooth just from making sure that those three words wouldn't carelessly slip off my tongue.
I tuck those three words away because you're not yet ready to hear them from me, if you ever will be… I can't do it. I'm not ready to chance the possibility of chasing you away just yet.
To be continued