Moonlight streams in from between the slats of the Venetian blinds on the window, throwing lines of light across her peacefully sleeping form and giving her skin a pale, ethereal glow. She is beautiful, and you find yourself wondering how on earth you got so lucky.
You're a sentimental man, not that anyone would know that about you. You tend to play your cards close to the vest. You've been burned one too many times to think that it's okay to show your hand. But as you look down at her, sleeping next to you, you know that this will be an image that is seared into your memory, the last one you hope you see before you die, and you know that for her, you will happily become the sentimental fool that you really are.
You were born under the sign of the crab, and although you've never really bought into astrology, there is a kernel of truth in it that you can't deny. You wear a coat of armor that protects you from the slings and arrows of life, and it allows you to move through life seemingly unscathed. But you know that the armor protects a softness, and that although the armor deflects, it does not mean that you have no wounds.
Your wounds are deep, deeper than you'd like to admit too yourself, but they are a part of who you are. They have made you who you are. The scars that you bear are from a lifetime of emotional trauma that has left you wary of people, of trust, of love. The people who wounded you the deepest are the ones you loved the most, yet here you are again, vulnerable, showing your softness.
From early on she saw through your ruse, easily finding the vulnerabilities in your armor. She did it effortlessly, and you knew that fighting it was pointless. So you trusted her, and in return she trusted you with her body and her broken dreams and her heart. It amazes you how quickly and easily she trusted you given your past, and you hold that in your sentimental heart like a precious jewel. Despite your past indiscretions you are not the kind to betray a trust easily, and she knows that about you. You're just glad she believes in you enough to trust you with her fragile heart, and you try to believe that you are at all worthy of it.
It was hard for you to watch her fledgling marriage fall apart, because you knew how much she wanted it to be forever. When she came to you that night with tears in her eyes your heart ached for her, and you held her as she wept for a foolish boy who had been playing at being a man. That night you were her friend.
When she came to you later, as a lover, you hesitated briefly; you knew it had taken a lot for her to come to you this way, but you didn't just want her body. You also knew that it would be awhile before she could give her heart, so you took what was offered to you in the hopes that one day, she'd give you the rest of herself as well.
You hadn't expected her to give you her heart so soon, but as you lay together one night in the tiny and uncomfortable on-call room bed, she told you of her broken dreams of children and houses with picket fences, and how she wasn't sure those dreams would ever become a reality. You kissed her tears away and reassured her that they would.
The next day, you went out and bought a house with a picket fence and room enough for a swingset and her dreams.
You didn't tell her about it, though, and a week later when she kissed Erica Hahn, you felt like a fool. It hurt like a bitch watching her walk off with the blonde woman, but instead of going to a bar and picking up a random woman, you went to the house you bought for her and painted the master bedroom the same chocolate color as her eyes. And as you painted, you knew that she'd be back it was just a question of when.
In the meantime you remained her friend, and tried to be supportive of what she was doing but inside, inside your heart ached because you had hoped she would choose you. Sometimes she would look at you and you knew that she was reading your heart, and she'd give you a small smile that was an unspoken apology. She had pierced your armor and she knew it, but she hadn't meant to hurt you and so you forgave her.
Weeks after she kissed Erica Hahn she came to you in tears again and she confessed that she had been wrong, that the distant heart surgeon was not what she wanted after all. You took her hand and led her to your car and drove her to the house, her house, never speaking a word because you don't have them. For once, you are truly at a loss for words because never in your life have any of your wishes ever come true, until tonight.
The look on her face tells you that this is the house she has dreamt of, picket fence and all, and when you hand her the keys she begins to cry all over again. You stand in the driveway and hold her as she cries, not caring that it's raining or that her mascara is staining your shirt or that your expensive Italian shoes are getting ruined because she is here, with you, and you know that this time she will stay.
As you lie in this bed, your bed with her, in your home with her, and watch her sleep you know that you are the luckiest and least worthy man in Seattle, but somehow you have won. Despite your past and hers you have found your way to each other, battle-weary and scarred. And for her you will remove all of your armor and lay your soul bare, letting yourself be vulnerable to the weapons of her love because you have had enough of being afraid.
She shifts in the bed, her dark hair like satin ribbons of ebony on the pillow, and her chocolate colored eyes open to find you staring. She smiles and caresses your face before pulling your arm around her bare hips.
"You're thinking so loud I can hear you. Go to sleep." She settles into the curve of your body and you smile, knowing that your heart is safe with her.