He had one pen he actually liked — a specific, slightly absurd preference for a particular brand of fountain pen that wrote, according to him, “the way thinking is supposed to feel.”
She’d thought it was a minor eccentricity until she watched him lose it, properly lose it, at a coffee shop, and witnessed something close to genuine distress.
“It’s a pen,” Soraya had said, not unkindly, watching him pat down every pocket for the third time.
“It’s the pen,” Ilias corrected, already standing to retrace his steps through the shop.
They never found it. He’d been quietly subdued for two days afterward, writing with whatever was available and clearly finding the substitute inadequate in some way he couldn’t fully articulate.
On the third day, she handed him a small box.
He opened it slowly, already protesting that she shouldn’t have, that it was an unnecessary expense, that he’d get over the loss eventually — and then stopped talking entirely when he saw what was inside. The exact pen. The exact model, ordered the same evening he’d lost the first one, expedited at considerable cost specifically so the gap wouldn’t stretch too long.
“You didn’t have to,” he said again, turning it over in his hands.
“I know you, Ilias. You don’t make a big deal about much. When you do, I pay attention.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment, just held the pen, and then looked at her with an expression she’d remember for a long time afterward — not grand, not dramatic, just deeply, quietly moved.
Love sometimes announces itself in big declarations. More often, she’d learned, it shows up exactly like this: paying close attention to the rare things someone cares about, and making sure they never have to live without them for long.
✦ Today’s Reflection
What is a small, specific thing your partner cares deeply about — something most people would consider trivial — that you’ve learned to take seriously because it matters to them?
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Sonia M. Rompoti, MSc, Bsc 
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