He says nothing, but I can hear his heart, racing in the quiet, and eventually I hear him exhale. It’s a heavy, uneven sound, like he might’ve been holding his breath for too long. I wish I could see his face. No matter how much time we spend together, I still forget how much he can feel my emotions, especially at times like this, when our bodies are pressed together.
Gently, I run my hand down his back. “I was thinking about how much I love you,” I say.
He goes uncommonly still, but only for a moment. And then he touches my hair, his fingers slowly combing the strands.
“Did you feel it?” I ask.
When he doesn’t answer, I pull back again. I blink against the black until I’m able to make out the glint of his eyes, the shadow of his mouth.
“Aaron?”
“Yes,” he says, but he sounds a little breathless.
“Yes, you felt it?”
“Yes,” he says again.
“What does it feel like?”
He sighs. Rolls onto his back. He’s quiet for so long that, for a while, I’m not sure he’s going to answer. Then, softly, he says:
“It’s hard to describe. It’s a pleasure so close to pain I sometimes can’t tell the two apart.”
“That sounds awful.”
“No,” he says. “It’s exquisite.”
“I love you.”
A sharp intake of breath. Even in this darkness I see the strain in his jaw—the tension there—as he stares at the ceiling.
I sit straight up, surprised.
Aaron’s reaction is so unstudied I don’t know how I never noticed it before. But then, maybe this is new. Maybe something really has changed between us. Maybe I never loved him this much before. That would make sense, I suppose. Because when I think about it, when I really think about how much I love him now, after everything we’ve—
Another sudden, sharp breath. And then he laughs, nervously.
“Wow,” I say.
He claps a hand over his eyes. “This is vaguely mortifying.”
I’m smiling now, very nearly laughing. “Hey. It’s—”
My body seizes.
A violent shudder rushes up my skin and my spine goes rigid, my bones held in place by invisible pins, my mouth frozen open and trying to draw breath.
Heat fills my vision.
I hear nothing but static, grand rapids, white water, ferocious wind. Feel nothing. Think nothing. Am nothing.
I am, for the most infinitesimal moment—
Free.
My eyelids flutter openclosedopenclosedopenclosedI am a wing, two wings, a swinging door, five birds
Fire climbs inside of me, explodes.
