He tries to memorize everything about her, just in case this is torn from him, or dies away, or never was. He has all these images to hang onto.
Jess taking notes, with a tight grip and curly handwriting. Jess groggy first thing in the morning. The soft curve of her belly and swell of her breasts. Her running her hands through his hair. Her painting her nails pale blue. Her legs tucked up under her while she reads, her smirk, her laugh.
Jess slicing vegetables for sandwiches. She's made a hobby out of teaching herself how to cook, gotten good at it, even. While he sits at their table, watching her, she stands at the counter, onions and lettuce and avocado and tomatoes lined up in front of her, thick slabs of bread to her left. They're soft and warm, baked from scratch, mayonnaise and turkey generous on them.
She's in faded jeans and a plain white camisole, hair twisted up off her neck. Small, blank squares of light fall through the windows onto her, find her freckles and the gold in her eyes.
He asks her, "How are you so beautiful?"
She tells him, "I'm just talented that way."
He stands and walks to her, wraps his arms around her waist. She squirms and turns and presses her lips lightly to his. With them still touching, he can feel her smile, its slow spread, and it makes him smile back.
Jess staring into his eyes like that. Jess' slender-strong hands. He covers them with his when she turns back to their food. Together they pick up the knife, with its dull edge, and together they slice off a circle of onion. She loves onions, and he hates it, and he commits it to memory anyway. Sharp, sweet tang, so annoying familiar.
They slice up the onion, the tomatoes, the avocado, rip the lettuce. Everything piles on her sandwich, and the onions are left off his.
Jess eating. Licking mayonnaise off her lips after a large bite, head on her hand while she chews, watching him eat. Leaning forward on his elbows, holding his sandwich in the air, his bites are hungrier, more urgent than hers.
"You make the best sandwiches ever, you know," he says when he finishes.
"Well, I have excellent help."
They both like bread crumbs, suck them off their fingers, so he washes blank plates later, no sign of their lunch left. She stands by him while he does it, leaving kisses on the skin of his neck. Telling him he's so beautiful too.
Jess' mouth. Her soft, full lips, her slick, straight teeth. Jess' Mickey Mouse sleep shirt and shorts. Jess' skin goosepimpling at the cold water on his hands. Her legs spreading as he leans her back onto their table.
Those lips shaping his name and iI love you, I love you, I love you./i
He has these images. Where she is the brightest thing, where he is desperate for it to last.