Neither one running.
He pulls back just enough to look at me.
His face close.
Thirteen years of this face.
Those eyes.
That specific, impossible blue.
“Stay,” I say.
Not a question.
Not a plea.
Just an open window.
The way it’s always been.
He cups my face.
Both hands.
His thumbs moving along my cheekbones the way they have since we were sixteen.
“I’m done leaving,” he says.
Quiet.
Certain.
Like a door finally closing.
Like a window opening on everything else.
He kisses me.
Not desperate.
Not like the bathroom or the grief or any of the almost-times.
Like something that has finally found its way home.
Slow.
His thumbs moving along my cheekbones. His forehead still against mine for one more second before he closes the space between us completely.
This kiss is nothing like the others.
This kiss knows things. It knows every morning he was gone and every night I kept the window open. It knows the rooftop and the fountain and the blue daisy and the hospital. It knows thirteen years of this and it carries all of it, careful and certain, like something being pressed into permanence.
I grab the front of his shirt.
He makes a sound against my mouth. Low. Like I’ve caught him off guard even now.
He walks me back to the bed slowly.
