Morning Sadness

She was cocooned. His arms wrapped around her, tracing shapes on her back. She was too hot, but she didn’t want to move, to break away, to lose this, whatever this was, so she stayed and breathed in the scent of his oatmeal soap and let her hands rest on his back like lifelines. She could feel his breath on the top of her head. His heartbeat was slow, rhythmic, as if he were sleeping.

They had been sitting on her bed, watching a movie on his laptop. They sat close, shoulder to shoulder, side to side, hip to hip. And then the movie finished, and they moved the laptop, but they stayed like that, talking, and she leaned her head on his shoulder while they talked, and she complained that it was bony, and he laughed and slid back until his chest was flat.

“Here,” he said.

She leaned her head on his chest. The indent between his shoulder and chest fit her head perfectly. Then they were on their sides, then they were together, only the pillow between them, face to face. They took turns looking at each other as they whispered. Once she opened her eyes while his were still open. His irises were normally too dark to see his pupils, but in the closeness she saw how wide they were, swallowing the brown. Their shared breath laughed. And he wrapped his arms around her, pulled her to him, and she buried her head in his chest and whispered “I love you” in a way he wouldn’t hear it.

It was dark outside. They felt caught in a strange peace, a safety—not the safety that nothing could hurt them, but that even if the ceiling caved in, flames were licking up their sides, the windows shattered, the room exploded—none of it would matter. They were on another plane of existence. The physicality of bodies, the shared heat, heartbeats, breaths, closed the distance of souls, and their souls entwined, at peace, calm. Time did not exist there. It was in the physical, but not the spiritual, mystical, second realm. And so when he finally shifted up, away, and the heat fell from them like an exhale, it was as if their souls were ripped apart.

“I’ll miss this,” he breathed.

“Me too,” she said. And she knew it was true. The next minutes, hours, days, weeks, years. She would miss this. They were ice and their fire melted them a little more every day. They were temporary.

She woke up the next morning to see him asleep on her couch, white light dappling his face, hair, the grey shirt he had not changed out of. He woke up as she looked at him, and he rubbed his eyes and put his glasses on.

“Good morning,” he said, voice cracking.

“Good morning,” she said.

She couldn’t shake the feeling that “good morning” meant “goodbye.”