She gently leaned over his face, her creamy back exposed to his ceiling as her white button-up pooled around her elbows. Her lips brushed the corner of his eye, though he knew they would travel no farther. She laid her cheek on the top of his head, though he never mistook it for affection.
She pressed her nose into his raven locks and inhaled. He could visualize her delicate ribcage swelling, and could imagine the creases in her heart unfolding as she continued to breathe. Her eyes never opened, though he never blinked.
She sighed against his head, though content was not the emotion. He never assumed it was. She tried again, holding her breath as if to savor the moment, though which moment he wasn't sure. Or maybe to remind her swelling heart that it wasn't who it should have been, and that this moment wasn't hers.
She wasn't the type to pretend anymore, and he wasn't the type to care. With every exhale, he could feel more weight pulling down through the bottom of her sky blue socks. He wondered how she walked anymore.
His head stayed pillowed on her pale thighs, and his eyes burned. But he wouldn't blink. Her legs were softer, and the sun had barely brushed them. Her hands were smaller, her fingernails painted a pale green. Her lips were plusher, he assumed, but not as playful. There were differences he counted over and over until his lungs remembered who he was with, and his hands stopped reaching for who he saw when he blinked at all.
She exhaled again, and the force could have blown down his wall. She was real again, he hoped, and they could wake from their sleepless dream.
Her eyelids fluttered open, and she slowly rose away from his torso. She unfurled her back and rested against the heels of her hands, craning her neck to stare at his ceiling.
"Thank you," She breathed out, and he was glad. She never apologized, and he would never accept it. He straightened as well, and they sat side by side for eternities, it seemed. The pale column of her throat was never less inviting than now, he thought, as he imagined all of the subdued marks left by a lover, though they faded as he tilted his head licked his motionless lips. She was never less desirable than now, with all of those memories dripping off of her rosy shoulders and onto his quilt. He felt he must look the same amount of unattractive in this moment, with pictures of tanned skin and ocean eyes sliding from beneath his hairline.
She slid gently off of his bed, and stretched languidly. He followed suit, and slid an arm around her waist. She knew their routine, and wound herself tighter into his half-embrace, smiling gently at his collarbone. His nimble fingers begin slipping the buttons of her shirt together, and she pawed the floor for his pants. They dressed each other, as always, and never spoke a word.
She rubbed her foot on the back of her ankle, and gathered her pale pink locks into a messy ponytail.
"One day," She mused, adjusting his hair, "I'm sure we could fall in love." He shot her a skeptical look, and her glistening lips tilted into a smile.
"…One day."