Rolling over in bed and stretching languidly, Meggan glanced out toward the ocean. Still nighttime, cool sea breeze coming in through the open window, there was much time yet to enjoy the darkness and the tantalizing freedom it offered. She leaned over the shoulder of the body beside her - the curves of his chest exposed despite the cool temperature - and pressed her lips to the edge of his jaw.
He rolled over, turning his back towards her.
Brian was fickle.
She knew this; knew his temper, the tenderness and violence of his hands, his changing moods; knew that he had never looked her way until she became beautiful, yet professed to love her for her heart.
But he wasn't superficial either, no, not Brian - he was the most selfless, kind, honest, and generous man she had ever met.
Meggan knew the way he was so very shy and insecure, and yet so certain when it came to his job. She knew his intelligence, and his bumbling - endearing, or sometimes painful - ignorance. She knew he was hard and tough, with a stoic exterior that it seemed nothing could breach (sometimes - more and more, recently - not even her love), and she knew how deeply he felt things - saw the pain that threatened to break his warrior's heart to pieces, tear the gentleness from his smile and the warmth from his eyes.
His smile was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen: small and shy and almost secret, like the first faint star that shines over the still-roiling sea after a storm - and, best of all, sparingly offered to her alone. He knew how to socialize, of course, but he had never gotten over the slight fear, the introversion, and he was not a performer - he had never been able to wrap a crowd around his finger the way his brother and sister could, and the stiff upturning of the mouth he gave to acquaintances was far from the beautiful sincerity that shone through in his reluctant true smiles.
She loved the way he could explain and manipulate symbols that meant nothing to her, loved the way he could make them dance on a page and make her believe, for a moment, that what he said made sense. (That was always how it was; as he spoke, everything would become suddenly clear, but the moment she had to understand - "Your turn, Meggan - what's nine times seven?" - they were just symbols again, cold and dead. She had yet to crack the code, but he remained patient.) Brian was very smart, she knew - he had a 'degree' to prove it - and yet he sometimes seemed both blind and deaf. "Let's go for a walk, Brian," she had said. And instead of hearing, "Please, love, we haven't spent time together in a week," he had to take it at face value, refusing because he had 'work' to do. "I love you Brian," she had said, and he kissed her quickly in response, saying nothing.
The coldness in his eyes sometimes chilled her. Having no brothers or sisters, she had no idea what it would be like to lose them - as Brian helpfully pointed out - but the agony in him was almost tangible. Brian didn't drink, either, not like this, not unless something was very wrong. She forgave his lashing out, tried to forget his words and remember his turmoil.
She had seen him fight, too, witnessed the stone-cold confidence with which he bested a foe; even the quip at the end, though not perhaps as witty as it could be, was always delivered with such righteous schoolboy charm that it seemed cutting and altogether fitting for the defeat of an enemy to goodness itself.
And that was what Brian stood for, in the end: goodness. In all his contradiction - his awkward elegance, his tense empathy, his ignorant genius, his gentle violence - the man was goddamned decent, and there was nothing better than loving him.
He got up early, without saying a word to her, and left.