He stopped asking me to read aloud after a while.
At first, it was our thing. Every evening, he’d sit on the edge of my bed like he had nowhere else to be, tapping the book twice.
“Chapter three,” he’d say. “Your voice sounds less tired when you read fiction.”
I didn’t know what that meant, but I liked that he noticed my tiredness without asking questions about it.
So I read.
Sometimes he corrected me softly. Sometimes he just listened like I was doing something important, like I was building something instead of just speaking words.
It was only later I realized he never actually read along. His eyes always stayed on me, not the pages.
One day, I asked him why he liked my voice so much.
He shrugged. “It makes quiet feel less empty.”
I remember laughing at that. Calling him dramatic.
Then he got sick.
Not suddenly. Not like in movies. Slowly, like the world was turning down the brightness without telling us.
At first, he still came. Then he didn’t sit on the bed. Then he stopped talking much at all.
The last time I read to him, his eyes were closed.
I thought he was asleep.
So I kept reading anyway. Because that was what we did.
When I finished, I said, “Next chapter?”
Silence.
I looked up, expecting him to smile like he usually did when I tried to rush things.
But he didn’t.
Later, someone told me not to say I “lost” him.
They said that word makes it sound like he was misplaced.
But I think they’re wrong.
I didn’t lose him.
I just ran out of chapters he could hear.
And sometimes, when I read now, I still pause at the end of a page… like someone is waiting for me to continue.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr917D6WFZY
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