I hear the tap and I’m already at the window.
He sees it’s open.
He stands there.
• • •
Just for a second.
Just long enough.
Like he can’t believe it.
Like he had a whole plan for the latch and now the plan is gone and he’s just —
standing there.
In the dark.
At my window.
The way he has his whole life.
I step back to let him in.
He climbs through.
Lands the way he always lands.
Looks around the room the quick unconscious way —
confirming it’s still the same.
It’s the same.
It’s always the same.
He looks at me.
I look at him.
Thirteen years.
Thirteen years of this face.
These blue eyes.
This specific person who has been the beginning and end of everything that has ever mattered to me.
He looks terrible.
I mean that with everything I have.
He looks like someone who hasn’t slept properly in months.
Thinner.
Something exhausted and ashamed around his eyes.
