She wasn’t sleeping, though her eyes were closed. They had been laying awake in the drone of the late morning grey light, pouring in from the window above the headboard of their borrowed bed for at least an hour. He had lingered, the alarm for him to leave had already gone off. He could hear the voice of the highway, rolling down US 290, calling him west. But he had stayed when she had awoke and sleepily pulled herself into the space that had opened up in the night between them.
So they lay there, in the room that was quiet except for the sound of the two fans, one overhead and one on the bedside table on his side. Her hair was black lengths of disorder, he played gently with the hair at the nape of her neck. She liked his hands there holding her head, his soft efforts, as she lay close to him. There was safety in the consistency of his familiar last night smells, even here in this place they did not belong, the lingering scent of his cologne and ever-present residue of kentucky bourbon. With his blue eyes peeking shyly behind drowsy eyelids she decided.
-I need to tell you something- she said. Sleepily his raised an eyebrow. She immediately followed with - but I need you to roll over.-
He opened both his eyes then, to take her in. The down comforter had been kicked off the bed last night long before they had fallen asleep, leaving only the tangle of soft shale blue sheets out of which her lovely dark limbs poured.
He then rolled over. For a few moments she did and said nothing.
And without knowing why she reached out and touched him. He felt it, her hand, flat between his shoulder blades, soft and small. She ran her fingers down his spine. Then across his ribs. Immediately he realized she was not scratching his back, each movement was unrelated to the preceding one, arrhythmic and unpatterned. She had not planned on touching him, but she had see the light catch on the lines of his bones and the designs of his so often hidden tattoos, and she had reached out. And as the words she had wanted to say stayed silent on her lips she moved her hand over him. He stopped trying to guess what she was doing and in their borrowed space listened to the voice of her touch. The side of her thumbs over the tops of his shoulder, two finger tips- which two he could not tell- over his side. The base of her palm on the back of neck. A single finger skimming over the top of his ear. The soft grasp of the skin on the side of his hip. She moved her fingers in an unknown dance of finger tips and broken circular movements over his whole back. She stopped for a moment to play with the grey hairs she was so fond of in his short hair. Then she drug her hands, hard, to watch the pink lines they caused. Then as she had started, she placed her hand between his shoulder blades, in the flat space where it seemed to fit so perfectly.
When she moved her hand from that spot he knew she was done. And he lay there silent for a few minutes wishing the fans were not on, wishing he could hear her breathe there behind him.
In time he said -that felt like a story.- And it was quiet, she still hadn’t said what she wanted to say but she hadn’t meant to tell a story.
-what story did it feel like?- she eventually asked. He rolled back over to face her. Her eyes were open now, like always so dark brown her pupils were barely visible. He liked how she looked in the morning, framed in the cascade of her black hair, the small constellation of three freckles on her left cheek. She was beautiful and soft, and every time he told her- which was every time he laid next her- she would laugh and tell him that he always said that.
-there are two people near a cliff, like near a road, and the road is rimmed in a stone wall, like the ones you see on the little mountain roads in the alps. Its foggy and windy like in the morning. One of them is standing on the wall, looking out into the mountains. The other is standing behind them on the road, and is worried. It is windy and they are high up. So they want to reach out and grab the other who is on the wall, to make sure they don’t fall. But the one on the wall is balanced, moving with each push of wind and they know if they reach out to grab them, that force alone might be enough to unbalance them and send them over the edge. So they are paralyzed, pulled in different directions by the forces of affection, fear, and prudence-
She watched him tell the story. He was always telling stories. But when he finished she couldn’t say anything.
He watched her eyes consider him, he knew she had no gift for words and so did not let the silence bother him. They lay there like that for some time- the touch, the story, and the unspoken words rising up like some invisible barrier between them.
He touched her face. She blinked slowly a few times.
-I need to tell you something- he said - but I need you to roll over.-
It took a moment for her to realize that he was serious, but she did eventually push off the sheet and do as he asked. She felt him move, shift his weight down and unexpectedly she felt his breath between her shoulder blades. A soft kiss.
And then she felt him whisper, - I love you too-
