There is something to it besides elation.
"Is this about you?"
There are her lips, her hands and the illusion that he had committed them to memory.
"No."
There is longing, growing when it should be sated.
"I am not in love with you, Harvey."
There is a lack of doubt and an abundance of relief.
"Are you saying you're coming back to me?"
There's every other time they've touched in twelve years catching fire in the back of his mind.
"We put it out of our minds and we never speak of it again."
There is every heartbreak - his, mostly hers - and infinite spaces where he should've said something.
"Love me how?"
There's the painfully tender way her fingers slide over the back of his neck and most of all there's their ever present lack of timing - the very moment he leans in overlapping with the second she pulls back.
Her nails drag lightly over his jaw as reality slowly floods the space between them, it wakes shivers he knows will ghost over his skin when he relives her touch in memory.
"I'm sorry, Harvey."
One of her hands lingers on his face, he feels the press of fingers as acutely as his own heartbeat racing in his ears, both are impossibly loud.
"I just had to know."
Her voice is shy of a whisper and devoid of meaning in the pocket of time where he's still dumbstruck by the aftermath.
He barely understands when she detaches reluctantly, watching motionless as her body leaves him cold with increasing distance.
His eyes follow her briefly until guilt cuts hot, sharp and suddenly through his chest a millisecond after he's reminded of context.
Rapture abandons him faster than he can grasp it and resentment takes it's place before reason can refrain it.
He thinks about lilies.
Harvey's mom is named Lily, in case that was confusing