"Hey. C'mon. Wake up."

I know you -- your habits, your flaws, your secrets... I know you, Jeb.

So it doesn't do you any good to just squeeze your eyes shut and pretend I'm not here. Lying bonelessly still in bed doesn't make you invisible, as much as you wish it would.

"Come on." I sit down on the edge of the bed. "Wake up and smell the coffee."

You don't move, but you crack one eye open to look at me. To you right now, I know, I'm a blur of color -- at close range like this you can almost, but not quite, make out my face.

"Coffee?" Your eye closes again, and you sigh. "All right."

I stand up. "Come on," I repeat. "Let's go."

I'm afraid for you, a little, though I don't show it.

For the most part, I'm getting tired -- you're so distant lately, so far from the world. I've been trying to call you back, but nothing ever seems to work.

I know you'll come back to me eventually, that someday you'll be yourself again -- but there's a long time remaining between then and now.

I'm starting to get impatient.

Behind me, I hear you getting out of bed, slowly. It seems to take all your concentration -- and then again, you're always slow getting out of bed.

Your footsteps are soft, padding on the carpet, going past me. You pause.

"Val? Are you all right?"

Your voice is soft and even. You sound so... normal.

If I didn't know you better, I could almost believe it.

Now it's my turn to sigh. "I'm fine. Coffee's on the counter."

"Mm-hmm," you say, and keep moving -- I can hear an implicit I can see that in your tone.

I don't want to leave you -- but more and more it seems to be my only choice.

I love you, and you know that -- love is something of a prerequisite to creating a child together.

But there is no sexual chemistry between us -- only emotional complexity, as you'd say if you had the guts to talk about us straightforwardly -- and we're altogether too different to stay together very long.

My question is whether you'll figure that out before I have to tell you.

"Hey, Val?" you say, your voice still soft and slow, as if it's just the two of us, and the world cannot touch us -- as if there's passion between us, not whatever this is that we have.

"Yes?" I turn to face you.

You smile -- forced, I think, knowing you -- and raise your mug to me.

"Thanks," you say.

Oh, God, I'm so sorry.