More Than a Meal

I don't think you ever knew how badly I wanted to stay at that table. Not because of the food. I barely remember what was on my plate. I remember you. I remember sitting across from you and feeling that ache I never really knew what to do with. That feeling of wanting to get closer when you were already right there. Wanting more time. More conversation. More of you. Wanting the night to move slower because I wasn't ready for the moment to end. And that's embarrassing to admit sometimes. How much I could want you without ever saying it. How something as simple as eating together could make me feel so exposed. Because I wasn't just sitting across from you. I was sitting across from someone who had somehow become a part of me. And I don't know if you understood what that did to me. How badly I wanted to be close to you without having to ask. How badly I wanted to be known without having to explain every complicated part of me. There were things I wanted to say that night. Things I couldn't get past my lips. Like, I miss you even when you're sitting right in front of me. I want you closer. I don't want this to end. I don't know what I'd do if this ever became a memory. But instead, I ate. I listened. I smiled. I pretended my heart wasn't doing something completely different from the rest of me. Maybe that's what makes certain meals unforgettable. It's not the food. It's everything you were too afraid to say while you were eating it. The hunger you don't admit. The love you don't know how to name. The fear that maybe this moment means more to you than it does to them. And God, I think that was the part that scared me most. How much I cared. How something so ordinary could make me feel so vulnerable. Because sitting there with you, I wasn't just sharing a meal. I was sharing a piece of myself without realizing it. And maybe that's why I remember it. Because for a little while, I didn't have to imagine what it would feel like to have you in my life. You were there. Your hands. Your voice. Your eyes. Your presence across from me. And I remember thinking, *please don't let this end yet.* I didn't say it. I don't think I ever could have. But I felt it. Deeply. The kind of longing that sits quietly in your chest and makes an ordinary moment feel almost unbearable because you already know you're going to miss it. Maybe that's what the meal really gave me. Not fullness. Not comfort. A memory of what it felt like to have you close and want nothing more than for time to stop right there. Just you. Just me. One table. One moment. And a heart that wanted so much more than it knew how to ask for.