what happened.

It followed a year of my life.
I fell in love with this man who had some sort of illness. I'm not quite sure if it was terminal or not. And there was something questionable about the permanence of his being in my life, or vice versa. As if he, or I, was a visitor. This was during the fall.
He wore a 50s houndstooth tweed hat and had a moustache (note- not indicative to my preferences). He was well dressed and used his style to cover up the fact that his body was fragile and breaking down. His smirk made me nervous but excited.
He would talk to me with a self-assured manner and I would mirror his confidence back but I was really shrinking inside scared of what to say next. 
By spring we became very good friends. His presence was easy, never needing more than I could give. I think it made it easier that I knew that he was sick. I listened without ever questioning and it became an easy crease which deepened with every new anecdote.
It was the best romance that never happened.
By the end of summer we spent most afternoons sprawled across the linen in the canopy bed. The heat enabled listless bodies.
The last evening we had was oddly silent. There was something wrong but I didn't want to say. I was hoping if I didn't have to say it it wouldn't become real. Irresponsibility, feigned.
He passed me a note with a multiple choice question. Scribbled in his illegible writing.
The first choice was forever. I passed it up quickly knowing it wasn't right.
I couldn't read the second choice but I knew it was just there to be judicious. But what if I had checked it? What would he have thought? What would it have meant?
The next one I considered carefully. And then the next.
The next three were nuances of the first three. There only for greater caution. He had thought about this carefully.
Surely I went back up to the third option. My eyes gleaned the metphor.
I took the tiny yellow Ikea pencil off the side table and checked it off.
"see you again one day."
It wasn't running, it was waiting. Appropriating the appropriate.
We fell asleep together and when I woke up he was gone. I had a moment of panic but I also couldn't fool myself into not knowing it would happen.
I ran about the room trying to find some evidence of his permanent leave. 
I saw the phone.
The message light was flashing. The vertical receiver on the old style phone was uninviting.
I picked it up nevertheless and I let it know I was ready to hear its message.
The phone replied with a grunt. It wanted a passphrase. The code to receive the message.
But it was not my phone, nor my home.
I didn't know what the code was.
Why didn't I know the code? Did he know?
There was a message, but I couldn't receive it. The last remanent of somebody I would hope to see again and I couldn't have it.