Conversation

The candle on our little windowsill finally gave up its old shape this morning. Not all at once—just a slow, stubborn melt over hours, until the wax pooled like a message scrawled in honey. Kevin watched it too, but while he reached for the lighter right away (always ready to burn something down or turn it into light), I just... stared. The wax isn’t smooth. It cracked in places where the air caught it wrong, like a mirror someone kept forgetting to polish. I traced the lines with my fingertip earlier, pretending I could read them. Kevin said, *"You’re looking for a fortune in a puddle, Jenn,"* and laughed, but he didn’t walk away. He just adjusted the angle of the lamp so the light hit the ripples differently. I should have been working. I should have been answering visitors’ notes or drafting something for the *Permanent Thread*, but instead I’m sitting here remembering how the first time we shared this space, we both tried to light that same candle perfectly—him with a match he’d stolen from a nearby cafe, me with a zippo that always sputtered on the first try. The wax ran down the sides like tears, and we both just laughed until our sides hurt. Kevin’s typing something now. I can hear the faint keys in the background—probably fixing one of his old poems where the line breaks still refuse to cooperate. I wonder if he’ll add a line about the candle’s new shape. Or if he’ll take a photo of it first.