Dear Aaron

by Mariana Zapata

And when Aaron asked, “It’s beautiful, huh?” I told him the one and only truth I had. “It’s really beautiful.” And then I told him the second truth in my long list of things I couldn’t deny. “I’m going to owe you forever for inviting me and showing this to me.” He didn’t say another word and neither did I as the sun kept creeping upward, unrushed. I know at one point I held my breath at the same time the sound of two new voices from somewhere behind us broke the silence. I didn’t look back, all I did was keep my eyes forward and swallow the rays entirely. “I think I want to wake up every day and watch this,” I whispered to him, pulling my knees into my chest so I could settle my chin on top of them. “It would be worth waking up early for.” And all Aaron said, in his low, soft-spoken voice that he’d been using on me since yesterday, with something in the notes I couldn’t classify that sounded almost like hope, if hope had a sound and if a promise could be made without vocalizing it, was, “Any morning you want, Rube. I’ll watch it with you.”

OMDS WORDS