“I wouldn’t need much,” he says. “Just space. Peace. A place no one could find me unless I let them.”
He glances at me now, and something in his voice shifts. Softens.
“You’d be there.”
My chest pulls tight.
“You’d sit in the garage while I worked. Barefoot. Sunburned from the beach. You’d read poetry aloud just to annoy me. You’d leave coffee mugs everywhere.”
I laugh through my nose. “That’s accurate.”
“You’d play music too loud. And steal my shirts. And fall asleep on the porch swing with your mouth open.”
“Okay,” I nudge him with my knee. “Now you’re just being rude.”
He grins, small, private. Like he’s letting himself imagine it for real.
“And I’d watch you. Every day. Like I didn’t have to keep you alive. Justlove you.”
I don’t speak. I can’t. The words are too fragile, too tender, too close to everything I never thought I’d hear from a man like him.
But he reaches for my hand, and I let him.
“What about you?” he asks, thumb running slow circles against my wrist. “Your dream life.”
I inhale through my nose, stare up at the ceiling like it might hold the answer.
“I’d own a bookstore,” I say finally. “Wood shelves. Bad lighting. The kind of place you find by accident.”
He smiles again, but doesn’t interrupt.
“I’d live upstairs. Windows that rattle when it rains. A kettle that takes too long to boil. I’d recommend all the sad books and cry when no one’s looking.”
His fingers tighten gently around mine, and I continue.
“There’d be a cat I didn’t choose but who refused to leave. I’d name him after some dead poet and pretend he didn’t own me.”
“And me?” he asks, quiet.
“You’d come in every Thursday,” I say. “Pretend you’re looking for something literary but end up buying war memoirs and thrillers. I’d tease you for your taste and fall in love with you in chapter titles.”
His expression flickers, something like awe, like grief, like hunger for something just out of reach.
“And we’d grow old,” I add, my voice softer now. “Not fast. Not in pain. Just… eventually.”
Silence falls. But it’s not empty.
It’s full. Of unspoken things. Of maybes. Of aching what-ifs.
I shift against him slightly, shoulder brushing his chest.
“What’s something you have to do before you die?” I ask.
He goes still.
Then: “Build something that doesn’t fall apart when I’m gone.”
I tilt my head. “A legacy?”
