Like is a feeling: positive, affectionate, an acknowledgment of choice and preference.  It signifies an invisible drawing force.  Instinctive, subjective, Like can not be taught, only developed, never forced.  Like also indicated similarity, a comparison of features inextricably linked in one’s mind, neural connections developed from experience and observation.  It is personal, a subconscious extension of oneself. 

She said Like after they’d known each other for 9 months, 4 days, and 5 hours, give or take.  Her eyes didn’t move from his, pink spreading across her cheekbones like a watercolor stain, her fingers clasped so tight in front of her, splotching a matching white and pink.  He’d fumbled and stumbled and not known what to say.  So he’d said nothing as they stood together on the top of the parking structure, only turned his head away far enough to see the rising sun peeking over the top edge of the horizon. She’d taken that as a polite dismissal, turning with him, the pink of the lightening sky five shades paler than the one darkening her features.  When they’d parted ways, to their own separate places, he’d watched her go, watched each step take her further away from him until she’d disappeared around the corner.  That night, sitting in front of his computer, his chest ached, not in a heart-attack sort of way, no sharpness or teeth to the pain, no throbbing or shooting, just a dull ache, a bittersweet one, like seeing the credits roll after a particularly good movie, or the last bite of an ice cream cone.  Like an ending.  But he didn’t want it to end, even if he didn’t know what it was, and the more he thought of her, of her eyes, and the pink and white splotches of her knuckles, the ache grew and grew until he could stand it no longer.  He messaged her.  Like, he said.  I like you too. She says Like 8 years, 10 months, 8 days, and 3 hours, give or take, from that message he’d sent her.  He pulls her closer to him, entwines her fingers in his, and watches the ring of silver he’d placed on her finger years ago sparkle in the sunrise. 

Keep tucks away sentiments and objects and sentimental objects away, always for an explicit reason, and they become a part of identity, an extension of this discrete breathing spark of life.  Keep pushes forward, one step in front of another, a repetition of actions and the forces behind them.  It represents both the outer physical make-up and the inner amorphous engine separating each individual from another. 

She says Keep, smiling up into his eyes, hands feathering over his arms in the dark of night.  A hot cup of tea appears before him, translucent steam curls in fractal patterns before dissipating, leaving behind earthy aromas.  He rolls his shoulders, his eyes a weary mass of burning aches from remaining open longer than the muscles were designed to withstand.  Black symbols dance around him in a wavering mockery of a foreign tongue, taunting him with visions of failure, of money crumbling to dust, of proof of his oft-wondered stupidity.  Morning is leaking into the dark province of night, his exam approaches him akin to a battering ram, and at this exact moment, giving up seems the least painful option. She says Keep, slipping a biscuit, crumbling at the edges onto the white paper napkin, beside the tea.  He drags her close to steal a kiss and forges ahead.

Just is the bare minimum, the thinnest outlines of an entity.  It categorizes, in the basest way, each into specific patterns built from childhood instruction.  Just denotes the implications of equality, fairness, the delicate easily overwrought scales of morality.

She says Just and kicks a pile of books askew.  Frustration spews from every pore as she rampages through the bedroom.  He sits along the sidelines, not sure whether to intervene on behalf of the victimized objects flung around the room in haphazard patterns, whether the risk is worth the potential for being sucked into the whirlwind whipping through the thin walls of their home. But soon he can’t bear the waves of hurt rippling through the air and he pulls her into his arms, whispers fantasies in her ear of perfect worlds and ideal people and other mythologies, a muttered stream of nonsense with no other purpose than to soak up her unhappiness.  The tense vibrations shaking through her limbs slow, her heartbeat keeping pace, until she bows in his grasp, weeping angry-hot tears into the fabric over his heart.  She falls asleep, exhausted, breath hitching in random spurts, the word Just lingering against the curve of her lips before it falls headlong into the soaked fabric cooling in the still air.