What did you mean when you said... (idea)

Really thought?

Any paragraph... any sentence; any phrase or individual word spoken can be pounced upon and chewed over and considered and reconsidered... wrung of every ounce of possible meaning.
And of several impossible meanings, naturally.

Sometimes these fragments ring loud in the ears of speaker and listener.
I'd never leave you.
Now, you both believe you know what this actually means in the context of the conversation... but you can hear one another thinking of all the different interpretations it could have had.
No one speaks in these considering silences.
Sometimes you can almost hear your heart burst.
Sometimes they're awkward and filled with unasked questions, and sometimes they're just silent and thought filled and ...together.

Sometimes the fragments are hardly noticed until later.
I'm just popping into the pub for a bite... I won't be long.
These comments are the ones that get really swirled around, later.
Did he mean what he said, and change his mind? Did he feel his words were careful enough to make them into a truth if not the truth? Or, in the end, was he a coward in this, as he was in so much else?

Sometimes the words are unexpected and abrupt. Frightening in their oddness.
I wish you were a guy: I'd come over and punch you in the mouth.
Or
It'll be Our Little Secret.
The worst of these thought-provoking phrases is that they can only be considered alone.

Any one of these, or a million other passing comments, can unsettle one for days. Weeks. For years even, when the comment is strange enough. Or deep enough. Or true enough.
It's even possible to decide that your favourite (or least favourite) interpretation is the correct one, and to base decisions over long long periods on this incorrect data.

"But... you said... you said you loved me in green"
"I said I loved a particular green dress you wore - and that was a year ago - all this unremitting greenness makes me feel ill"

"You told me you wouldn't ever fall in love with me"
"Things change."

Things do change, that's true.

But sometimes it's really hard to work out what has changed, what will change, what might change, and what will never change.