quick-paced dialogue

so once a year I write... I think it's cuz I only get one idea a year.
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"That's what I like," and then she paused and looked for just a brief moment as if she would continue, her mouth not quite open, but not completely closed either. And then nothing.

"What?" he prompted and then waited for over a minute.

"Well, I really like that type of interaction, the quick-paced dialogue."

He burst out laughing. "Do you see the irony of that coming from you?"

"Hey, you can admire, you can really like the thing, the one thing that you are incapable of," she said, smiling.

Reflecting on his relationships, with Lisa, with everyone, actually, reflecting on his life, he was struck by the truth of that statement. He looked at her closely, feeling an inexplicable gratitude that they were in this moment. As if the mistakes, the uncountable moments of anguish, frustration, frantic searching that they each had experienced separately and sometimes together through the years had culminated in this moment and all those moments were washed away in some sort of fragile hope that he hadn't considered was possible before.

She was watching him, watching all that was going through his mind as it flashed in his eyes, as one thought disappeared into another in the twist of his mouth.

There was a brief moment, when their eyes locked, when a kiss was considered, in the fragile space between them. Quickly, she hugged him, as a preface to goodbye, she pressed her cheek into his, her right hand cradling his other cheek and whispered, "Thank you. I wish I could do for you what you do for me."

And what he felt was an opening of space, a lifting of something heavy off his whole being, and it gushed out in one large exhale and a hint of tears in his eyes. Eyes glossy, he sighed again, and the events of the past few weeks, with Lisa, with his parents, spilled forth beginning with, "Yea, it's been a tough month."

The next day, after the drive home, and a good night's sleep, when they talked, the only words that she could find that put into the sense of release that she felt from the time spent with him were, "I feel like I've had a vacation."