Without Words

Sometimes when I am naked, or no naked, when I am being silly or serious, when I am paying no attention, I look up and find Boy looking at me.

He is smiling. Boy has a lot of different smiles. He has the smile when an idea has come together, the smile when he is walking behind a pretty girlie in tight jeans, the smile when he is about to eat delicious food, the absent sort of smiles of working with machines.

This is a smile that I never see anyplace else. This is a smile for me, of me, about me.

I don't know how long he has looked at me like this. For a long time people told me, when I was worried or upset, that they could see how much he cared about me in how he looked at me. I did not believe them. It felt foolish to put my faith in something as fleeting and easily misinterpreted as an expression.

But now the rest of our lives have tangled together, and he tells me with his words and his actions and the fact that there's no doubt left in us how he feels.

Sometimes I think that even if he never said it, I would know from that smile that he loves me.




And you should know: I did not expect this. I did not ever think, when they told me he looked at me with caring, that I would see it. I never thought he'd look at me like this.