Thousands of days later

Not having seen each other in years, they met one day by chance and had a nice but superficial conversation on the street. Both knew there was so much more that could have been said, but it wasn’t because once those floodgates were opened, who knows what might have happened.

When they were saying good bye, he reached in his pocket and brought out a roller ball pen. Taking her hand, he turned it over and writing something on her palm, told her not to look until later. When he was finished he closed her fingers over what he’d written, kissed her on the cheek and walked away.

Of course, he must have known she would look immediately at her hand. There were seven numbers, seven very familiar numbers. Yet it took her a moment to realize why they were familiar: it was her old telephone number from back when they were together. These thousands of days later, he still remembered.

--Jonathan Carroll