All of These Unknowns Really Clutter the Mind

I don't know how long we laid there. It could have been minutes. It could have been hours. And if logic didn't tell me otherwise, I would have even thought it days. I don't remember much about it, except that the sky was an odd hue. One that only came around once in a lifetime, if that. And I remember wondering why more people weren't mesmerized by the concoction of melon, mango, plum, bubblegum, and cherry that blazed overhead.

There was a dialogue between us; I remember that, too. We talked about the future. We talked about the past. We talked about every, minute detail that could have been born into our brains. We weren't looking for answers. We were only looking to talk.

"What about tomorrow?" he whispered, as though the slightest rise in decibel level would spoil our ill-contrived hideout.

"What about it?" I asked, my words slurring with a combination of contentment and approaching sleep.

"Will we be together?" My eyes fluttered open for a moment, turning towards him as the crickets begged for an answer. I wanted to ask what he meant. I wanted to ask why he had to doubt it. I wanted to ask if he even wanted us to be together, but I couldn't force an ounce of sound from my throat. The quiet existed there, between us and between the world before he caught onto my plight. "It's a weird sky out tonight, isn't it?"

My brows furrowed at his changing of topics. I knew he could see my disturbance out of the corner of his eye, but he wouldn't turn to me. He wouldn't look at me.

"Yeah," I mumbled as I gazed back up at the celestial fire. "Yeah, it's weird."

I don't know how long we laid there in silence. My mind couldn't even focus on the bleeding colors, brightened by the sun's impending slumber. All I could think about was his question and the tranquility of his voice as he asked it. Immediately, I began to worry, thinking that perhaps it was his subtle way of telling me that he already had big plans for his tomorrows and that I wasn't a part of them.

Ten minutes.

Twenty minutes.

Thirty minutes crept by, and I was still obsessing, until I felt movement against my tingling fingers (they were tingling with the adrenaline coursing through my body). I couldn't quite figure out what the sensation was for a few seconds before I realized he was holding my hand and squeezing, ever so slightly.

In that instant, I realized. I understood. I had all of the affirmation I could have wanted.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow were going to come, whether we wanted them to or not. And when those tomorrows came, the only person I could imagine them with

was him.