You look at the tears in her eyes and you try to see them as they are, but all you see them as is a gift. You want to thank her for them, for trusting you with them when you didn’t ask, for telling you things when you didn’t ask, for having the courage to look you in the eye with tears in them when you didn’t ask.

And, of course, parts of you raise up--you should say something inspiring, you should comfort her, you should make her laugh, you should do anything but stay still and look at her--but it’s your gift, you can’t stop thinking of it as a gift.

Your heart takes those tears, a real intimacy, as though they’re gold coins and you feel like they’ll vanish if you tell her what they mean to you, so you don’t.

But you should.

You look at her and you think, you’re so sad, thank you and that’s exactly what you need at this moment. Someone who can see you--not as you were, how they want you to be--but you, as you are in this moment at too early in the morning in the quiet of her bedroom.