My Cousin Doesn't Know I'm Still Thinking About Her

It was supposed to be a one-time thing, the kind of night you file away and never speak of. Just the two of us, a situation that got too comfortable, too warm, the usual boundaries dissolving somewhere between the second drink and the quiet of a house with everyone else gone.

But here I am, weeks later, and she’s still the first thing that crosses my mind in the morning. The way she looked at me after, like she was trying to figure out what we’d just done. Neither of us said anything real. We cleaned up the silence with small talk and pretended the room wasn’t charged with something we’d never be able to take back.

I want to tell her. That’s the part that keeps me up at night, not guilt exactly, more like this low, persistent hunger that doesn’t have anywhere to go. Every family gathering now is a study in restraint, standing close enough to catch her perfume and saying absolutely nothing that matters.

She might feel it too. There are moments, a glance held a second too long, a touch on the arm that didn’t need to happen, where I almost convince myself she does. Then the moment passes and I’m back to silence.

I don’t know how to say it without setting fire to everything around us. So I keep it where it lives, somewhere behind my chest, waiting.

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