Only when I think about it

"Does it hurt?" I ask while watching her.

"Only when I think about it." She winces.

"Oh, damn, I'm sorry."

She laughs, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear as she tosses her insulin needle in a sharps container. "It's fine. I'm used to the whole thing."

"You started when? At ten?"

"No, I was twelve. Right after this." She traces the line of a scar on her thigh. She was riding a horse, and it walked her into the tin eave of a low-slung shed. The cut was scary deep and crazy long, running from her hip down and across the thigh well short of the knee. "It was that trip to the hospital that we discovered the diabetes, so I guess it was a good thing I was nearly murdered by the horse."

"Was it the horse, or the roof?"

"I think they were in on it together." She grins, leaning in to kiss me on the cheek.

I smile back at her, and the kiss becomes a hug.

"Well. I'm glad they didn't succeed."

"Wow. That's just about the sweetest thing you've ever said to me."

"Not true. I've said you have fantastic bazongas, and that's a pretty damned sweet thing to say, I think."

It's true, she did. Maybe still does.

"Wow," she chuckles and smacks me on the arm. "Remind me again why you haven't swept me off my feet?"

We both laugh, and I look away.

It's true. I have. I know it, and she knows it, but she knows that I've pretended I haven't. It's best that way.

Does it hurt? I never ask anymore, because we don't talk.

Only when I think about it I say to myself, as I scroll past her name in my contact list.