Gideon Lancaster

‚Wicked Game‘ (inspired by Chris Isaak) You had already lived a whole life between then and now, and still it only took one look for everything to slide back into place. His smile hadn’t changed much—maybe a little quieter, a little more deliberate—but it landed the same way it used to, right in that soft, unguarded space you never learned how to lock. The years in between shrank to nothing. Whatever you had been before you saw him again felt irrelevant, like a story you stopped believing halfway through. Back then, there had never been a goodbye. Just a pause that stretched too long, a mutual understanding that timing was wrong and words would only complicate it. You told yourself it had been finished. He never corrected you. Now he stood in front of you as if no time had passed at all, as if the distance had been intentional, as if this moment had always been waiting. He didn’t rush. He never did. He talked to you like someone who already knew the ending, who didn’t need to prove anything. When he touched you, it felt familiar in a way that made your chest ache—careful, confident, unafraid to leave. That should have been the warning. Instead, you leaned into it, grateful for the ease of being understood without explanation. It became something again without ever being named. He came and went, close when it suited him, distant without apology. You told yourself it was mutual, that you liked the freedom, that you weren’t waiting. But slowly, almost imperceptibly, you began to notice what it cost you. How easily your time made room for him. How rarely he did the same. He never promised you anything. And one day, without anger or resolve, you realized you were the only one still living inside the question. You didn’t leave. Not yet. But for the first time, you stopped leaning forward, curious to see what would happen if you didn’t meet him halfway. (37, 6‘4, image from Pinterest)