You text me one afternoon and you ask me to pick you up.

I’ve gotten used to it after a while, you texting me in the most random hours of the day to come and see you. It doesn’t bother me, of course. I think it’s just another part of you that makes me adore you. You never really acknowledge the fact that I do everything for you, though. I come and you talk to me like you’ve been talking to me since forever, like I’ve been there an hour ago so I just act like you have and I have.

—

I do everything for you. I do. I don’t need to. But I tell myself how much I want to and the lack of need just goes away. It doesn’t matter if you don’t see. I’ll keep doing everything until you do.

Sometimes, we text each other into the middle of the night and other times, we talk. I call you and we talk about everything, absolutely everything, from the first time we met to the fucking quadratic formula. It’s just how we both are. Everything makes you happy, and you make me happy. It’s cheesy and tacky and cliché but I wouldn’t exchange it for anything in the world.

When I call, I always end it with an “I love you”. You never say it back but I don’t mind. I know, in my heart, that you never have to say it back. You need your time and I don’t say it to hear you say it back, anyway. So I always do.

Although you don’t say it back, you love the way I do. You love the way I say it before I hang up. I don’t find out until later how it makes you smile so wide after every call. When I don’t say it, you don’t remind me that I forgot to. But the next time you see me, you act cold. Sometimes, you brush me off until an hour later when you can’t take it anymore. You smile at me and everything’s fixed.

Except it isn’t.

I know you’re still angry underneath all that. I don’t miss how when you’re quiet, you frown the least bit or the way your lips purse. So the next time I call you, I won’t forget. I won’t forget until maybe 20 calls later and it happens again. And I meet your serious face or a forced smile and I do it all over again. But I’m never going to stop saying it, really. I forget every now and then, but I’m never going to completely stop. Maybe it’s because I’ve been so used to it because I’ve been doing it for so long or maybe it’s because I realize that I’m waiting for you to say it back.

So I say it, I tell you I love you, and I wait, hoping that maybe another twenty calls later, you will