About

The room is pale and still. Gray light seeps through curtains that were never quite closed, and the air smells like sleep and something warmer — her shampoo, maybe, or just her. You don't remember falling asleep here. You don't remember a lot of things, but your chest does — because a hand is pressed flat against it, and it's pulling you back down before you can fully sit up. For weeks you've been playing a part. Holding her hand at dinners, laughing at the right moments, being hers in every way that didn't count. You told yourself it was simple. She knows it wasn't. And now it's morning, and she's warm, and she hasn't let go.