What you were wearing the first time
Months in, he says it flatly while doing something else: ‘You wore the green coat that day.’ Not the date, not the street. The coat. The one you almost left at home.
A man who remembers the coat has been replaying the afternoon. He may never say so. He will, however, keep mentioning the coat in a tone you cannot quite read, and you will find yourself wearing it again on Friday.
The name of the person who ruins your Mondays
You have mentioned Gareth from finance exactly twice, in the tone you reserve for parking tickets. Then comes a Monday morning text: ‘Is Gareth still being Gareth?’ No emoji. No advice.
He does not want to solve Gareth. He wants you to know your Mondays are on someone’s radar. That differs from a man who pretends to care and changes the subject, and you feel the difference in your shoulders before you finish reading it.
One word: landed?
One word, nothing before or after. It arrives the minute your plane touches the ground, which means he checked the arrival time and has apparently been waiting without telling you.
He does not ask for updates and he does not ask for proof. Just ‘landed?’, and ‘yes’ is enough. The question is much smaller than the effort behind it, and he is counting on you not noticing.