Six Minutes, Every Time
he waits exactly six minutes to text back, every night. tonight i timed it on purpose and i don't know why.
This one goes to a heavy place. If you’d rather not read it tonight, that’s a fine choice — support resources are here.
i started timing it on purpose tonight. he never opens my texts right away, he waits, and for months i told myself that was just how his phone works. tonight i sat on the front step outside my building and watched the little check mark turn blue. six minutes. i scrolled back through three weeks of messages and did the math on all of them. six minutes, six minutes, six minutes, like he's got a timer running somewhere i can't see.
we're not dating. we've never used that word. we get lunch sometimes and he remembers i'm allergic to shellfish and once he drove forty minutes to bring me soup, and none of that is nothing, but none of it is the thing i actually want either, which is for him to answer in under a minute the way i do.
i could just ask him why he waits. instead i sit out here doing the math again, telling myself it's about patience, and not letting myself finish the sentence about where those six minutes actually go.
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