Early summer was now starring in on us through the window not yet interrupted by the clattering air conditioner trying and failing to get ahead. Before humidity takes over making your skin stick causing sweat to fall down your back into the evening and sometimes through the night. Till then the air is still and slightly stuffy momentarily interrupted by the air moving through the ceiling fan and the window. Just enough to warm your skin and comfortably lay across the couch some lazy afternoons.  
 
Some record she picked was on, and she was reading on the sofa. I have just asked her if she wanted some tea peering out from the doorless doorframe of the pocket kitchen. She nods, silently and sleepily, without looking up from what she is reading. I turn to grab the two glasses and get the tea pitcher from out of the fridge. Cutting up a lemon wedge I turn out the seeds and score the surface, squeezing the juice and dropping the rest in; the spare seeds slowly sinking to the bottom. Picking up the two glasses I stop under the doorframe. 
 
Pausing everything while I looked at her. I really loved her, and the realization just crossed my mind before colliding into me. The symphony records now at its crescendo that had taken twenty minutes to be spilled out in the air between us. I feel now that I love and have loved her, being had begun, I could tell her anything and do anything for her. Surrounded by this warmth I am also scared about how strongly I am feeling after passively living in myself.  
 
Once before I felt this way but never consciously, waking up, wiping my tears, and leaving my bed. I was in a common living space that was rather industrial with faces starring back at me that I perhaps have known. I felt as I consciously did now, carried into my meeting them. I can't even remember what one of them said, but at that moment I would do anything to leave as I had tried before. I quietly moved from this space to grey and eventually in a white bed somewhere with a friend I did not have looking down on me. I looked over to her, her long curly hair being all I remember gazing into eyes that never existed but still held my reflection. With her hand still in mine we go home in the back of a taxi through the night rain as lamp posts and stoplights smear their color across the foggy window. That moment then I was so happy and calm and really felt the company of someone.  
 
But now I feel this way, upright, starring down into the two cups. 
 
"Susan?" she said.  
 
I quickly looked up walking towards her creaking the floor beneath, putting the glasses on the two coasters in front of her. The record had stopped; I flipped it over and placed the needle back on its edges. Sitting next to her she has the bookmark in her hand waiting for a place to stop. I want to tell her but not now, not so suddenly.  
 
"What were you thinking of?" she said, now putting down her book. 
 
"Just a dream from a couple of years ago," I replied, "the music reminded me of it, and I also wanted to listen to the end of the movement without the floor creaking." I added.  
 
"I really enjoyed that part too!" she said. "You must have been thinking awfully hard about it; even after the record stopped for quite some time." 
 
I blushed a little and turned towards the glasses on the coffee table. "Here" I said handing her the glass, "Shouldn't wait too long in this weather or it will perspire too much and will be uncomfortable to hold." 
 
"I agree" she replied, "it's best to never wait too long."  
 
We drink the tea listening to the tree leaves collide outside and the next movement as I put my glass back down. Still holding her drink she closes her eyes putting her head on my shoulder, humming the end of the movement to herself and in my ear.