Does it matter?

We have been seeing each other for two years now. Two years! There was a time I couldn't imagine two weeks ahead. It's been a see-saw ride, a mad pendulum of "is this real? It can't be real. When will it end?"

You still won't hold my hand, and we have never said we love each other. But you tell me in other ways, I think. You care for me, and my friends, and my cat. Your family and friends know my name. We have stuck by each other in a pandemic. Even if it's circumstantial, we have chosen to continue as restrictions loosen, and we are silently committed to one another, I think.

Does it matter, then, that we only interlock fingers in the bedroom? That ours is a secret language? That I want to say I love you but I'm scared you'll run away? Does it matter that this might end eventually? Does this matter to you too?