My paint scrapping obsession has landed me with a minor infection in my eye. Something I must have rubbed into it while cleaning the paint from the windows in my bedroom. It’s happened before and doesnt take long to clear.

I stood in front of the mirror, watching the warm compress reduce the swelling and I thought back to a girl that I loved once, who’d sat on my lap helping me find the pieces of a contact lens that had torn and were floating in my eye. I remember feeling love for her then, but we hadn’t spoken of that sort of thing. I wouldn’t tell her that I did until the end, as though it was something that shouldn’t be left unsaid, something that she needed to know; that she’d been loved. We’d agreed not to say it, but I felt like it was wrong, untruthful, selfish to keep it from her.

She sat on my lap, looking into my eye while I stared at her unblinkingly. Her hair had fallen into her face just a little and I swept it back, making her realize that I was watching her. She fished the last piece out and leaned across me to throw away the tiny pieces. I wrapped my arms around her waist and thanked her. She wrapped hers around me and rested her cheek on the top of my head.

It’s strange the moments we think of, when we consider the love we’ve had in our lives. It isn’t the perfect gift, it isn’t the perfect words, it’s the little moments, the tenderness that make us feel love, feel loved.