Maybe we're just passing by?

I see a rain cloud on the horizon moving towards us. But we both do not move. Once we were sitting like that, looking at the waves of the other ocean, when he told me he was going to be a father. "Probably the best thing that happened to us is that we never really loved each other," I finally say after a long pause. He smiles and says nothing. I look at his temples which is geting gray and God-given features. Once we were Lui and Vita, today I feel like we are sitting next to each other like players who have lost a competition. He never fell in love with anyone during those years. I never found an escape from my only love. "See you in three years," he hugs me goodbye and I understand better than ever that we won't meet. From now on we will always pass each other.

- Did we perhaps not say something when we needed to say it?- my friend asks me, and I start to explain that I have already expressed everything, written it down, and if needed, shouted it out, so that it would be clear to anyone who loved or was loved. But I stop.

- Probably,- I reply. - Probably, we never say everything we truly should say on time.

And not just when we love. We don't say it on time when love ends, too.

"I don't know you anymore," I laugh too strangely at the screen while he tries to find the right path that leads into the forest, where he will lie down in the shade and read a book. He never used to read books. Neither the ones recommended to him nor the ones I gave him as gifts. He was different when we met. He, on the other hand, never tried to find the difference between the past and present me. While his eyes dart between the screen and the road, I wonder if I did the right thing by never saying what I should have. I look at his face on the screen, thinking whether, back then, our timing would have matched or driven us further apart. If I had spoken at the right time, would I still see his face on the screennow, or would we have vanished from each other's horizons?

Maybe I should say it now? So that later I wouldn't have to regret and repeat those unfortunate sentences, "if only I had...". But I have nothing left to say. I would like to speak to the person he was. I didn't get to know the person he is now.

I don't know if I would still idolize every fleeting laugh of his, as I tirelessly waited for it before. Or would I run from the present him to the farthest corners of the world, as I used to run back then? Would I still be able, through all those dark months, years, to love for two, for both of us?

I don't know anymore, and it's strange that I don't know. I would like to pass the baton to him and hope that he will do everything since it's his turn now. However, I'm not sure if we are still playing on the same team."

I could ask? But I stay silent. Being silent to each other is still what we do best.

Many people call our generation "sexless". However, psychologists studying human relationships in the 21st century now call "loveless". The biggest problem, they say, isn't that we make love less often than any generation before it, and it's not that we don't want to. We are not making love because we don't know how to. More precisely,we don’t know how to love each other anymore. People defend themselves by saying that if you've been burned a few times, don't stick your fingers in the fire. Protect yourself more. But that self-defense makes us forget that fire doesn't just burn. A fire can warm those shriveled hands.

In the bar, a young girl and a boy of the same age are standing in front of me. More than an hour has passed, and being close to each other, they have exchanged just a few phrases and a few smiles. The rest of the time, they just wait for one of them to dare, and to me, watching this whole performance, it seems strange yet familiar how obvious everything can be from the outside, but when you are there, it feels so dangerous and scary. He watches her, every turn, every hand movement as she runs her fingers through her long hair. She tries not to look, but it doesn’t work. Laughing, she always turns towards him and pretends she is smiling at someone else's story, but not at him. "I'm leaving," she says, pushing through the crowd, approaching him one more time and stopping in front of him, waiting for his response. "Have a good evening," he mumbles, and the smiles vanish from both their faces. He watches her through the doors, and she turns back a few more times. I sit, watching everything that happened, and think that it would have taken so little. One sentence that was never said. I think about the times when that sentence would have been enough for me. About the times I waited for it, and how many times I left without hearing it.

How obvious it is now that we are missing each other while thinking that only the right time for us is passing by. How painfully clear it is that we are just walking around each other, never understanding that we truly belong to each other. Maybe we will get tired one day and meet along the way? Maybe one day we will stand next to each other and both decide to talk. We can talk about the snow in winter, which we dislike. About lakes and oceans where we have swum. We can talk about the patterns on socks if we want to. About spice mixes, about the right temperature for sleeping. But let’s not pretend that we will find something in silence. No one has found anything. We won't find anything either.

Because the truth is, those who are silent together for the longest time simply have nothing left to say to each other.

Another hour passes, the boy and his friends head towards the exit. He lingers and glances at the street where the girl had walked away. He looks, but she's gone. Sometimes people are just passing by.

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