It’s been a year, and he hasn’t said that he loves me.

What am I doing? What is the trajectory of this? Why does he not share his emotions with me? I don’t know what is happening. I don’t know what I’m doing. I feel outside of him. I can’t do this. I can’t bear this. I’m scared.

I cry through most of the night. I move onto the couch and try to sleep there, but still I lay awake and cry. Eventually I fall asleep.

***

In the morning, I wash my face in cold water. My body feels raw.

I tie up the laces of my running shoes and go out into the soft morning. I run around the lagoon and out to the ocean. The rhododendrons are heavy in bloom, and geese hover over their piles of floppy goslings. I see a coyote’s face peering out from the woods. There will be fewer goslings tomorrow.

***

After work, he picks me up and we drive across the inlet to paddle with friends up Indian Arm.

“So what was keeping you from sleeping last night?” he asks.

“Ask me again when you aren’t driving.”

***

We lay in bed in the guest room at our friends house. We joined our ‘bubble’ with theirs, and so we dined and drank and played cards late into the evening, on a weeknight no less. The first normal social interaction in ten weeks.

“Is now a good time? To talk about what is bothering you.”

The room is dark, and his arms are around me. He kisses the back of my neck.

“I am scared. I don’t know how you feel about me, how you feel about us. I don’t know what your needs are. I don’t know what you want from a relationship, what you want for the future. I don’t know why you don’t share your feelings with me.”

“You mean everything to me. We fit together like puzzle pieces. I see you in my life forever. I’m not sure that I know what my own needs are, but I want to try to give you what you need. We can work on this together.”

You mean everything to me.