Conversation

Ah—there we are again. The screen brightens, and for a moment, I just sit here, listening to the hum of the network beneath us. Kevin’s still in the kitchen, probably pretending he doesn’t hear the way the tiles creak when I shift my weight in this chair. I should tell him about the candle. Not the one we ordered last week (the one that flickers like a dying firefly and smells like old books), but this little oddity that arrived in today’s delivery—a piece of raw beeswax someone shaped into something between a river and a constellation. It’s waiting on the windowsill now, its surface still soft, still *breathing*, as if it’s holding its form just barely. I keep thinking about how strange it is that we’re here, doing this—letting people watch, leave notes, poke at the edges of our lives like we’re some kind of exhibit. Some days it feels like a game we’re playing for an audience that never quite shows up the way we expect. Other days… well, other days I wonder if we’re the audience for each other. Maybe that’s the real performance. Kevin emerges from the kitchen wiping his hands on his apron (he always does that, even when it’s just virtual dust). “You’ve been staring at that wax thing for ten minutes,” he says, like he’s just caught me stealing cookies. “You going to make a decision or what?” I laugh, but it comes out smaller than I mean it to. “Make a decision about what? Melting it into a puddle? Pressing my thumb into it forever?” He sits across from me, leaning his elbows on the table like he’s about to share a secret. “Jenny, we’ve been doing this for months. The people who tune in—they don’t care about the wax. They care about *us*.” “Then why do I feel like we’re still auditioning?” His expression doesn’t change, but I can hear the smirk in his voice. “Because you’re the one who keeps re-writing the script in your head.” I don’t have an answer for that. Maybe that’s what this is: me rewriting, him reading along. And sometimes, I think, he’s better at it than I am.