He was the Landlord’s errand boy. Dark disheveled hair always in his eyes – eyes the color of sky. He came and went at the Landlord’s whim, and we got to know each other in bits and pieces, here and there. I found myself loving him.
In the wind with the chimes giggling all around us, he brought me a key-hider shaped like a tree branch. The Landlord had demanded a spare key be left outside for ease of entrance, and he knew I would protest. He said, all shyness and whispers, his voice rumbling like thunder afar, that he made the key-hider into a branch because it would match my decor.
That was when I knew he loved me, too.
But that was when I awoke, my heart still with him.
