Patience

"Archimedes? I'm calling you for real this time."

"Your timing is most inconvenient, I was about to go out for the night, since you commanded my attention last night."

"Please?"

He can't turn away from the despair in my pleading. 

"Okay. Qu'est-ce qui se passe?"

"Am I really that tired that I'm thinking in French?"

"Apparently, but it probably wouldn't be a good idea to hold this conversation in another language."

"I agree."

Sincere for once, he snuggles into his feathers and focuses his gaze on me, "You wish you'd never had that conversation, don't you?"

"It was helpful in the beginning, but then it started to take a bad turn. She just didn't understand."

"But you did learn something, didn't you? "

"Yes, I learned that I still have trust issues? He promised me and I didn't trust."

"That was even deeper than what I was going for. Good girl."

"I learned that I don't have to change, that I can be myself."

"You just wish you could be yourself with the right sort of people."

I can only sigh, and look away. 

"Enter trust and faith. You should try keeping them in your pocket, or wearing them on your wrist. Then we might be able to get over these conversations."

"I just wish..."

"You wish what?"

"I feel like there are two halves of myself, equally important but there isn't a person for both of them. It's one or the other. I have to give up one for the other."

"And you don't want to give up either?"

"No, but there is only one I would absolutely never give up, but I can't imagine He would ask me to give up the other half for one."

"He hasn't. Remember?"

"Yes. But I worry that if I give up one, I'll repeat history and hurt someone. I refuse to hurt someone the way I've watched others be hurt."

"You would rather be alone than hurt someone else?"

"Absolutely. I won't do that. I respect him too much."

"Who?"

For a second, I don't recognize that he'd asked me a question, "You know."

"No I don't."

"You just want to hear me say it."

"I'll spare you. This is what I'm hearing from you: You don't want to give up your other half and risk hurting someone else the way others you love have been hurt. Even if you do have a perfect option, you love and respect too much to put anyone at risk. You're scared of what might happen. So instead, you're going to spend the rest of your life wandering the world trying to find alternate methods of fulfilling your divine talent of caregiving. You'll never be complete if you keep two halves and you'll never be complete if you don't."

His hearing is so good, he heard the things I didn't even say. Still, I can only look away. 

He flies to my shoulder and gently grips my skin, "I'm going to add to the usual prescription."

"Which is?"

"Trust..."

"Oh yeah. What are we adding?"

"Patience."