What You Don't Say

She called and said the word: accident.

Said the guy doesn't want it, that she can't.

I said nothing. She waited.

The silence between us elevated

into something heavy, something

I was supposed to fill with something.

What do you say to that?

What do you do with the fact

that someone you love is terrified

and you are terrified

and neither of you can say it?

She told me she had a test, two lines,

and now her life is defined

by this thing she didn't want.

The guy is gone. She's got

the apartment, the appointment,

the weight of the moment.

I could have said something.

Could have offered her something—

a place to stay, money, a promise

that it would be fine. Some promise

that I can't keep, that no one can keep,

but she needed to hear it. I said nothing.

She hung up. I texted later:

I love you. That's all.

And it's not enough. It's not

what she needed. But it's what

I had. It's what I could do—

tell her I love her into the void.