Owen left before I did. Said he had somewhere to be.
An hour later, my phone buzzed. A text from Owen. No words. Just an emoji of eyes. The kind that meantI saw everything.
I didn't respond. What was I supposed to say?
Movie night was her idea.
She showed up at my door around seven, holdinga bag of microwave popcorn and wearing that hoodie that used to be mine because she'd stopped pretending she was going to give back.
"Something funny." It sounded like an affirmation, and then she added, "I need to laugh."
She didn't explain why. Didn't have to. I'd noticed the shadows under her eyes getting darker, the way she'd been quieter than usual the past few days. Something was weighing on her. I didn't push. She'd tell me when she was ready, or she wouldn't.
So we ended up on my couch with a bowl of popcorn between us and some comedy she'd found on streaming. Something with a ridiculous premise about a guy who accidentally becomes a spy, and actors I vaguely recognized from other things I'd half-watched over the years. The kind of movie that didn't require attention, didn't demand anything except showing up.
The lights were off. The TV cast blue shadows across the room, flickering with each scene change. Lucy was close enough that I could smell her shampoo, that vanilla and honey scent that had become as familiar to me as the smell of smoke and diesel.
She laughed at the first few jokes. Real laughs, the kind that made her whole face change. I found myself watching her more than the screen, tracking the way her eyes crinkled, the way she covered her mouth when something caught her off guard.
Twenty minutes in, her head started to droop.
I watched it happen out of the corner of my eye. The slow slide, her body slowly relaxing into thecushions. Her breathing evening out, going deep and steady. Her eyes fluttering closed, then opening, then closing again.
She'd been working double shifts again. I knew because I paid attention to when she left and when she came home, even though I pretended not to. She hadn't been sleeping well either. I knew that too. I could hear her sometimes, moving around her apartment at 3 AM, footsteps creaking across the floor, the muffled sound of the TV turning on. The thin walls hid nothing.
And her head finally landed on my shoulder.
I went still. Completely, absolutely still. Afraid to move, afraid to breathe, afraid to do anything that might wake her. She was warm against my side, her weight settling into me like she belonged there. Her hair brushed my jaw, soft and smelling like her shampoo. I could feel her breath through my shirt, slow and steady, the rhythm of someone finally at rest.
I should wake her. That was the right thing to do. Shift her off me gently, suggest she go to bed, maintain some kind of boundary between us. Keep things safe. Keep things simple. Keep pretending this was still just two neighbors helping each other out.
Instead, I didn't make a move.
The movie played on. People on screen were doing things, saying things, probably funny things based on the laugh track. I wasn’t watching it anymore. Just sat there in the glow of the television,Lucy's warmth against my side, and let myself imagine.
This is what it would feel like. If I let myself have this.
Coming home to someone. Not to an empty apartment and leftover takeout and the silence that had become so familiar I'd stopped noticing it. Coming home to her. To dinner on the stove and conversation and the simple comfort of another person existing in the same space.
Falling asleep on the couch together. Waking up tangled in each other, legs intertwined, her hair spread across my chest. The kind of lazy Sunday morning I hadn't had in years, hadn't let myself have because it felt like too much to want.
Building a life out of small moments. Ordinary moments. Morning coffee and evening walks and arguments about what to watch and making up afterward. The kind of moments that didn't seem like anything until you strung them all together and realized they were everything.
I'd wanted that once. Before Mateo died. Before I'd decided that wanting things was too dangerous, that caring about people just gave the universe something to take away. I'd been on a path toward that kind of life, maybe. Dating occasionally. Thinking about settling down eventually. Assuming I had time.
Then Mateo was gone, and Lucy was gone, and I'd closed that door and locked it and told myself I was fine on my own.
Lucy shifted in her sleep. Burrowed closer, herbody seeking warmth. Her hand found my chest, fingers curling into the fabric of my shirt, holding on like I was something solid in a world that kept shifting underneath her.
I closed my eyes. Let myself enjoy this. Just for a while. Just for tonight.
Just this once, I'd pretend.
She woke slowly.
A gradual surfacing, like someone swimming up from deep water. I felt her breathing change first, the rhythm shifting from deep sleep to something lighter. Then she stirred, her hand flexing against my chest, her head lifting slightly from my shoulder.
She blinked. Looked around the room like she wasn't sure where she was, how she'd gotten here. The TV was still on, playing credits now, soft music filling the silence between us.
