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The counter was cold, even after the steam from the shower frosted the mirror and thickened the air in small space. My hands slipped on the slick surface and I curled my fingers under the palm as I sought to get ahold of myself.
She lay soundly asleep in the room just outside this one. An extra pillow would be resting against her stomach, one leg sticking out of the side of the mass and her arms full of blankets tucked close to her chest. She made sure her nose was covered, for some adorable reason, and without realizing it, I'd wandered out to the end of the bed and just...watched her. Callum would be home tomorrow, David the day after that, and then she'd leave me. There was nothing I could say to make her stay.
We'd go back to sharing crappy coffee in the breakroom, saving seats for each other at staff meetings, and...moving on with life. Seeing her this intimately hit me square in the chest: one day I would be able to let her go. It had been there all along, this knowledge, inside me somewhere. It resided in the same place all the things I didn't want to admit called home. I didn't know if it was something admirable or frightening that I could hide these things from her. She was more than intuitive. She was well trained and lethal. And yet, I flew under her radar. Or did I?
Maybe she could see that life wore on me, that David's demands, work's demands, and my own all sat on my shoulders like a yoke that I drug along unwillingly. She was my only respite. Maybe she knew that having everything on the outside didn't mean that it completed things on the inside. Maybe she saw me-the real me. Because I saw her. We were on opposite sides on the same cheap mirror, and we reflected empty perfection. I longed for peace. I wasn't afraid of living. I could do that in my sleep. I was terrified of living and never feeling the way I felt with her. It closed around me, the abject horror of the possibility, and it stole my breathe. My mind raced, each solution hitting the same brick wall.
She was not mine. Nothing I could say would stop her from going home.
I sat on the side of the bed, gently as not to wake her, and ghosted my fingertips over her forehead as I swept her hair away from her eyes.
"The shower is yours."
She did as she always did and his her eyes, her sign that she needed a few more minutes. If she wasn't careful, though, she'd be late.
"Nah-Ah. No five more minutes. Shower. I'll go get coffee."
This time, she stirred and grinned in that sleepy fashion, not yet opening her eyes. I drew the back of my fingers delicately down her cheek, what was exposed at least, and leaned down to place a kiss against her temple.
One morning, I'll say those words to her, those ones I can't speak now. One day I'll bring coffee to bed, crawl in beside her, and watch her wake up with awe and wonder. One day.
