there were too many ways to begin. Should she start with a cheery smile or a coy one? Perhaps he would like to hear about the evening out with the girls, how they asked so many questions about us, how they sounded really happy that we're together. She would then tell him how much she missed him, and the countless number of times she just had to resist calling him because she was at work. And after that, she would bring out the coaster she had slipped home from coffee club, and read out, while feeling embarrassed, the message she wrote at whim. He was after all, her soul mate too, and he could share in the silly things in her mind, no? How was work?, she thought about asking him that. Or maybe not. Work can be left for the weekday. Do you think he would want to hear about how the beautiful sunset I saw on the bus, she wondered, and how the crimson streaked sky left me awe? oh but  before all of that, she just really wanted to tell him how much she had missed him, and how glad she was to see him again, because that was the truth. and in fact, that was the most important thing to her.

 

Oh but would he be too tired to listen? or find the chatter too frivolous? Or perhaps this wasn't the right time?

 

And so, when she saw him again and she felt elated, she didn't know where to start.

 

"Hi there"

 

quick peck on the cheek. His eyes betrayed the hint of distraction. The excited chatter played out in her mind a thousand times suddenly faded to a murmur.

 

And she stayed silent.

 

"Hi there too"

 

Perhaps not now, perhaps this isn't the right time. Perhaps I shouldn't bog him down with such things, they might irritate him. Perhaps... I don't know, she thought.

 

Perhaps that's how couples fall silent. They censor all their thoughts, and have their moods affect each other so much, and keep from saying things until the 'right time'. And then come one day they realise that they have fallen silent. There just simply wasn't anything to say to each other anyway; everything had been talked out in the head already.