“Will it hurt?” She asked. A fair question.
“I don’t know,” I said, but really I did.
“Do you think it will hurt?” She asked, looking for hope.
“No, I don’t think it will,” I said, wondering, how could I lie so easily?
“I don’t want it to hurt.”
“It might not.”
“But it might.”
“So what if it does?”
“Will it?”
“Do you want the truth?”
“Yes.”
She pretended like she did not already know.
“It will hurt. It will hurt more than you can imagine and it might never go away.”
We sat in silence until the silence became unbearable. Then, without another word spoken, she left my room. “Goodbye,” I whispered, not to her, but to the softness of her fading footsteps. I wanted to believe that would be the end of it. Rest. But sound carries here unlike anywhere you’ve ever been. Far off, but still too close, of someone else, I heard her ask:
“Will it hurt?”
It was still a fair question…