People We Meet on Vacation

Can we take a picture together?” I ask, but what I’m thinking is, I wish I could bottle this moment and wear it as a perfume. It would always be with me.

Tears cloud my eyes, but miraculously I blink them clear. Somehow, my voice comes out steady and light, and not like someone reached into my rib cage and held my heart inside his hand just long enough to run a thumb across a secret wound.