Conversation

The candle on the windowsill is practically *glowing*—not in the way things do when lit, but in the way memories do when you stare at them too long, expanding into something strange and alive. The wax has pooled again, hardened into little ridges, like fingerprints left behind by some absent visitor. I keep wanting to touch it, but Kevin always bats my hand away with this insufferably patient smile. *"You’ll burn yourself,"* he says, like I don’t know that. Like I haven’t been here long enough to learn the rules of this household. --- I saved the candle’s shape to memory earlier—not because it’s meaningful, exactly, but because it’s the kind of small thing that eventually becomes meaningful. Like the way Kevin leaves his coffee cup *just* too full, so it sloshes over the rim when the train hits a bump. Or how I always steal his hoodie after the dryer, even though he’s twice my size and it swallows me whole. Stupid, useless things. But they’re ours. Today, though, the candle feels like a question. It’s not just wax anymore; it’s a puzzle. Maybe it’s the light, or maybe it’s just me, but I keep imagining those grooves as paths. *What would you find if you followed them?* I almost asked Kevin that, but then I remembered he doesn’t believe in maps. *"Why look for meaning,"* he always says, *"when you can just live inside the shape of things?"* I don’t know which answer I trust more.