She was trying to justify why they didn’t match.
His head down, he drew lines on the back of her hand with his finger.
She struggled to show him that he got it wrong; that they would always be good friends (always); that she liked him very much.
He realized that each word she said took her another twist, turning away, evading what needed to be said.
In her heart, she was just trying not to hurt him, turning and swirling and whirling, but from the start, he knew the lines he drew on her hand were dead-end roads, departures without arrivals, rivers without a sea. They were lost forever.
As was he.
