Three deleted messages

The Morocco bag is still by the door. I keep walking past it like it's furniture, and I let it because moving it would mean deciding something I haven't decided.

Goncalo texted this afternoon. Made it back, the flat is exactly how I left it, Lisbon is still there if you ever want to come back. I read it in the Alfama room with the afternoon coming through the shutters in long warm strips. I read it twice. The second time I heard the question he didn't type: when are you leaving.

Three replies. The first was almost automatic, something about flights and maybe September. I deleted it because it sounded like a brochure. The second was true: I don't know yet. I deleted it because it was too small for the size of what I was actually feeling. The third hid inside a sentence about the light on the tile at this hour. I deleted that one because it wasn't an answer, it was me being a coward in a nice font.

I notice that he asked. I notice that I noticed. I notice that I have been answering a question he didn't actually write, and the question I have been answering is one I can't say out loud, which is: do I want to be the kind of person who comes back, or the kind who stays?

The bag is still by the door. Tomorrow I'll either unpack it or I won't. I think that is the whole day.