"I didn't know what I wanted." He shifts closer, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from his skin. "I just knew I was tired of feeling like something that happened to me instead of something that I chose."
"And now?"
"Now I feel like I chose." He reaches out, places his hand on my chest, directly over my heart. "I chose you. Whatever youare, whatever you've done, whatever you're going to do. I chose this."
I don't know how to respond. The words create an input I have no model for, no framework to process.
So I do what I've learned to do when words fail.
I lean in and kiss him.
It's not like last night. Not brutal, not demanding, not designed to overwhelm and overwrite. This is slow. Soft. Exploratory, like I'm learning the shape of him all over again.
He makes a small sound against my mouth, something between a sigh and a moan. His hand fists in my shirt, pulling me closer.
When I finally pull back, his eyes are wet.
"Why are you crying?" I ask.
"Because no one's ever kissed me like that before." He wipes his face with the back of his hand. "Like I'm something worth being careful with."
I don't tell him that careful isn't in my vocabulary. I don't tell him that what he's interpreting as tenderness is actually calculation, a deliberate application of reduced force designed to produce a specific emotional response.
I don't tell him because I'm not sure it's true anymore.
Something has changed. Something shifted last night, in the dark, with his body under mine and his cries in my ears. The calculations are still there, the analysis still running, but underneath it there's something else.
Something that doesn't fit the model.
Something that feels almost like feeling.
"Breakfast," I say, because I don't know what else to say. "You need to eat."
He smiles. It's the first real smile I've seen from him, unguarded and genuine.
"You always say that."
"Because it's always true."
I stand, pull on clothes, head for the kitchen. Behind me, I hear him moving, the rustle of sheets, the soft pad of feet on the floor.
He follows me. Stands in the doorway, wrapped in a blanket, watching me cook.
It should feel strange. Domestic. Wrong.
It doesn't.
It feels like something I didn't know I was missing.
I file that under anomaly and keep cooking.
But the file is getting crowded. And sooner or later, I'm going to have to figure out what all these anomalies mean.
For now, though, I make eggs. I make toast. I set a plate in front of him and watch him eat.
And I let myself want this.
Just for a moment.
