the ceiling fan keeps counting

—don’t go.
—i’m not moving.
—say it again.
—i’m not moving. i promise.
—okay.

(the room is dim in the way only teenage bedrooms are with its curtains half-drawn, light leaking in like it’s doing something wrong. my phone is face-down on the desk. no notifications. no proof i am wanted elsewhere. the fan keeps ticking, counting seconds i don’t know what to do with.)

—you’re shaking.
—it’s cold.
—it isn’t.

(i’ve learned how to disappear without leaving: sit still, be agreeable, don’t ask to be held. seniors say my name and then forget to look at me. my friends and boys pair off like shoes. i am the extra lace. i am tired.)

—tell me why you called me.
—i didn’t. you just…
—just what?
—showed up.

(i don’t remember the first time i noticed you. only that at some point, the quiet stopped being empty. you fit into it too easily. it’s as though you’d measured the space before arriving.)

—do you ever get lonely?
—only when you’re quiet.
—that doesn’t make sense.
—it doesn’t have to.

(i watch your hands. they rest like they belong somewhere. if you touch me, i will believe in gravity again. if you don’t, i will still rearrange my life around the possibility.)

—what do you see when you look at me?
—you don’t want that answer.
—i do.

(i see a girl no one wrote songs about or texted late into the night. i see someone who learned to love softly so it wouldn’t be taken away. i see a future that keeps changing shape the moment i reach for it.)

—i see someone who stays.
—people don’t do that.
—you’re not people.

(the mirror on my wardrobe shows one body. two shadows. or maybe the light is wrong. it’s always wrong at night.)

—are you real?
—define real.
—don’t do that.
—then don’t ask.

(i try to remember what my life felt like before you started sitting on the edge of it. it’s blurry, like the neighbourhood of my pre-school. one  driven past but never entered again.)

—what happens when morning comes?
—morning always comes.
—that’s not an answer.
—it’s the only one i have.

(my heart is loud. too loud. if someone were standing outside the door, they’d hear it. they’d hear you too. or they wouldn’t. i don’t open the door to check. i think of all the ways this could end: waking up, being wrong, being alone again. i think of all the ways it could stay like this: suspended, unnamed, safe.)

—promise me something.
—careful.

(the ceiling fan keeps counting. i stop trying to. whether you are dream or decision or something my mind built to survive, you are looking at me like i am enough.)

—stay?
—I am.

(and for now, that is indistinguishable from love.)