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Rated: E · Book · Tragedy · #2352829

This journal is fiction. The voice you’re reading is a character, not the author.

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#1110386 added March 11, 2026 at 10:30am
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Group and Paul’s Invitation.
031126 This journal is fiction. The voice you’re reading is a character, not the author.

Here is something I did not expect to write.

For the past three weeks Paul has been calling me several evenings a week. Almost always around eight. At first I thought it might be a one time thing after brunch, just a friendly check in. But it kept happening. The phone rings, and when I see his name I feel that small moment of surprise all over again.

We usually talk for an hour, sometimes longer.

The conversations are easy in a way I am still getting used to. He has told me a little about his time in the military, but he never lingers there very long. Most of the time he talks about his family. His sisters, his mother, stories from when they were younger, the kind of everyday memories people carry without thinking much about them.

I find myself telling him things too.

Not the heavy things. Not the parts of my past that still feel like closed doors. But I have talked about my family, about school, about work. Normal things. The kind of conversations people have when they are simply getting to know each other.

And he has never pushed.

Not once has he asked questions that made me feel cornered. If I pause, he lets the silence sit until I am ready to keep talking. I notice those things now.

It has been a little over a month since he first invited me to brunch.

Today he called me at work and asked if I would join him again this Sunday.

I said yes.

Even writing that feels a little strange. Not frightening, just unfamiliar. I even talked about it during group tonight. Saying it out loud in that room made it feel more real somehow.

One of the women asked if that meant I was ready to start dating.

I don’t know.

Maybe not yet.

But I do know this. I enjoy talking with Paul. I look forward to his calls, and the idea of seeing him again on Sunday feels… nice.

For now, that feels like enough.
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