Thirty Days of Notes

The first note was stuck to the kettle: You still make the best coffee in this house. Nadia read it twice, smiled, and wrote one back on the bathroom mirror in eyeliner.

It had been Ben's idea, born of a bad winter of overtime and missed dinners. Thirty days, one note each, no exceptions. By the end of the first week the fridge was a patchwork of yellow squares. Your laugh on the phone this morning. The way you hum when you cook. That grey jumper. Wear it more.

By the second week, the notes had grown bolder. One appeared in her coat pocket on the train, and she felt her face warm as she read it between stations. She answered with a note tucked into his laptop case that made him close it again very quickly in a meeting.

On day twenty-nine he found a note on his pillow that said only: Tomorrow. Eight o'clock. Don't be late.

He wasn't. The flat smelled of candles and the curtains were drawn. On the table lay the last note, folded in half, and when he opened it Nadia stepped out of the bedroom doorway wearing the grey jumper and nothing else.

'I ran out of words,' she said.

He crossed the room in three steps. Much later, tangled together on the sofa with the candles burning low, he reached for the notepad and wrote one more line.

Day thirty-one. Let's not stop.