When You Are Near

    They fought earlier. His temper was quick to flare when she touched on the frayed nerves of his control. She wanted to be friends. To be the one he went to when he was troubled or just wanted to hang out. It took a moment to realize this would never happen.
They would never just be friends. The intensity between them made that impossible. Just the thought of him made her breath catch in her throat and her eyes burned with unshed tears.
When she walked away from him, from that terrible exchange of words, she knew it was over. Truly, well done and over.
   The paper in her hand was burning like a brand. It needed to be read, by him and understood. Maybe without a face to face he would hear her, instead of fighting against her. She tucked the paper into the door of his truck and she walked to her car quickly.
She had no idea what her words would do but she had to take a chance.

    He saw the paper and knew right away who it was from. His whole body trembled with a nervous anticipation. The woman knew how to press ever button he had and it drove him mad, in more ways than one. He unrolled it and read the words there.

When you are near it feels like my lungs have too much air in them, like I could never breathe enough.
And whenever you are far my throat closes, like I could never breathe in again.

He stood staring at the words for a moment and realized that his throat had closed. He could not draw in a deep breath and he felt his chest tighten with the deep emotion he carried for this woman. This little slip of a thing that wielded words like daggers and then soothed the wounds with the gentlest of smiles.
He wished things were different. Oh how he wished.
He stood and stared off into the distance not knowing what to do but knowing in his heart that this was the woman he loved more than anything in the world. He just could not bring himself to tell her that. Tell her that he made a mistake. He wanted a rewind button.
But would his situation be any different?
A sigh escaped him and he felt the weight of all of this settled onto his heart.
He was lost.