change | ch ānj|*
noun
1 the act or instance of making or becoming different
• the substitution of one thing for another
• an alteration or modification
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She looked at him with an expression that made him laugh. Not out of entertainment but out of nervousness.
They had been living together for seven years now, married for two of those. They met when she was twenty and he twenty-seven. They were both writers at the time, but now she relied on bartending, and he on freelance photography.
Today was any other day. It was a little past noon and they both sat at the kitchen counter drinking coffee. He reached for a blueberry muffin as she reached for the morning paper. Their hands gently touched for a split second, and in that second it seemed as if she had been struck by lightning. She physically jumped from her seat and her eyes shot open with anxiety. At first he thought perhaps something had happened, a shock he didn’t feel. But as she lowered her hand onto the counter, he realized what it was.
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They had been dating for three years now. A week ago he asked her to move in with him. She hesitated and didn’t answer him, but tonight at dinner, she will finally put him out of his misery.
“Do you know what my worst fear is?” She asked in a challenging manner with piercing eyes.
“Mm..you were always afraid of heights..” He responded waiting for a signal to see if he was heading in the right direction, but no such luck.
“Well, yes, I’m afraid of heights..” She responded taking a sip of her Shiraz, careful not to let her accident-prone ways spill even a drop of wine onto her ivory dress. “But my worst fear is waking up after fifteen years or so of marriage, next to the person I’ve promised to spend the rest of my life with, and realizing I don’t love them anymore.”
He had just finished cutting off a piece of his steak, but his hand was frozen in midair, the fork feeling heavier by the second. He finally nodded in understanding and placed the piece in his mouth.
She observed how his eyes would not meet hers, and the way his fast chewing habits had become heavy slow movements. She took another sip and waited.
They would finish their dinner that night in silence, and the next day she would move in with him.
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*definition from Oxford American Dictionaries
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