See You Bleed | ✓

XXV

"One day," you said to me, "I saw the sunset forty-four times!"
And a little later you added:
"You know-one loves the sunset when one is so sad..."
"Were you so sad, then?" I asked, "on the day of forty-four sunsets?"
But the Little Prince made no reply.

Max is reading me one of our favourite books from the times when we were younger and more innocent.

We used to read books together all the time. There is something intimate about reading a good book to the one you love.

"The fact is that I did not know how to understand anything! I ought to have judged by deeds and not by words. She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her... I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little stratagems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her..."

Max stops reading the book at that part and looks at me meaningfully. "You know," he starts, "just like him, I was too young to know how to love you. Too young, too lost and too foolish. You were my rose and I let you go. And for that, my sweet Sasha, I ask your forgiveness. I'm so fucking sorry."

I hold him tightly against my chest. Intense emotions are tearing me into pieces. We don't say anything else for the rest of the night.

Sometimes silence tells much more than any words ever could.