He looked tired; more tired than I’d seen him look in awhile. Of course, when I thought about it, he always looked tired and I hadn’t really seen him for awhile. He had crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes—they were so much more pronounced as he gave me that weak smile. I just watched as he cautiously made his way toward me, his blue eyes contradicting the expression on his face. As he drew closer the smile on his face seemed to grow stronger, less forced, yet it still did not seem entirely genuine. He took my hand and shook it firmly, professionally. He’d been doing that for years; his motions almost seemed automatic, engrained in his muscles like an inborn reflex.

He brushed a strand of blond hair away from his eyes, revealing the dark circles which sat below. His face looked thinner—given how thin he had been already it wasn’t good or attractive. The thinness of his face and the rings beneath his eyes combined to give him an almost skeletal appearance, his eyes appearing sunken in.

I nervously brushed a piece of imaginary fuzz off my pants, offering him a seat. He sat, his entire body showing a wave of relief to be off his feet. I sat beside him, though while he let his body sink into the plush chair I sat rigid, fidgeting. “Thanks for meeting me,” I offered.

“No problem,” he replied. His voice reflected his appearance; worn, tired, stressed. I felt bad, calling him at such an hour, waking him from much needed sleep when I hadn’t been around when he’d needed me. But I needed him then and he’d always been the type of person to go out of his way to lend a hand to a friend. “What’s up?”

“I just…needed someone to talk to. You always used to be up late and I figured if you were around you wouldn’t mind meeting me. You know how I hate talking on the phone,” I was rambling, something often done in his presence. It wasn’t as if he made me uncomfortable or nervous. At least he never used to. There was just something about him; something that struck a chord and caused my insides to do somersaults and my heart to beat faster. It was amplified now, as we sat in the nearly deserted restaurant. The waitress came over and I ordered coffee for both of us, mine with three creams and four sugars, his black.

He nodded at my explanation, opening his napkin from the utensils and folding it into an origami pattern, a habit I had always known him to do while at a restaurant or bar. He had once explained he learned how to do it while in Japan and ever since, in order to keep up with the art, he’d always folded his napkins into different objects while awaiting a meal or drink. He raised his eyes from the swan he had been creating and gazed at me. “So…talk,” he encouraged.

I obliged. I launched myself into everything that had recently been upsetting me; all the things I was worried about and all the things I wished I could do and be but knew I never could. He sat patiently, listening to every word, not interrupting a single time. He’d always been able to do that; to just sit and listen and not say a word until he was sure you’d finished or asked him a question. It was fifteen minutes later when I finally took in a deep breathe and shook my head. “I just don’t know what to do anymore.”

“Sounds like you’ve got a lot on your plate.” He was stating the obvious, but I knew it was because he honestly didn’t have any advice to give me; he just wanted to let me know that he had listened.

“I do,” I nodded, spinning my now almost empty mug by its handle. The remaining coffee sloshed about inside, a few drops springing out and sprinkling the table. I wiped it with my napkin, holding a breath before I returned my gaze to his eyes. “Do you think I should leave?”

He looked confused at my question, his perfectly shaped brows coming together, the creases in his forehead deepening. He didn’t look thirty-eight; I wished I had known him before he had gotten so old. “Leave…here, now?”

With a soft smile I shook my head. “No…do you think I should leave Ethan?”

He cast his eyes to the floor, what seemed like a smirk playing across his pale lips. “I can’t make that decision for you,” he lifted his eyes to mine again and I suddenly felt very sad for him. “That’s something you need to decide for yourself.”

The waiter came and refilled our mugs as I contemplated what I had just divulged. I wondered if I had made the right decision in even asking him to meet me here, to have him listen to me complain about things that I knew he thought were so very trivial. In the scope of things, my problems were trivial, especially compared to his. I nodded, knowing that he was right and I would have to weigh the situation carefully before taking any action. “What about you? How are things?”

A defeated, sarcastic laugh escaped his lips at my question, his long fingers curling gracefully around his coffee mug. “Things are just fucking wonderful, thanks for asking,” he took a sip of his coffee, set it down with a thunk, leaning back into the deep maroon of the chair. “I haven’t spoken to my son in three years, I haven’t spoken to any of my family in about three years. My career is going nowhere as fast as it ever went anywhere, and I feel like I’ve got nothing left to live for; like I’ve lost my passion…” his voice trailed off, a tear springing to his ocean blue eye. I fought the urge to reach across the table and brush it away—it would have been inappropriate; that part of our past, our closeness, had faded into nothing but painful memories and cruel reminders.

“I’m…I’m sorry,” I whispered. It had never been quite as easy for me to find words as it always seemed to be for him. He always knew the right things to say and exactly when to say them and who to say them to; I envied that about him. I envied every thing about him. Even now, sitting in that booth while he fought back tears, I envied him. He had the ability to fight back those tears whereas I did not. I was vulnerable.

Perhaps he left me vulnerable. Perhaps it was the way he looked at me, his eyes lingering over my lips as I spoke. Perhaps it was his composure in a time when any normal human being would have broken down. He always seemed to hold up well in difficult situations; I wasn’t sure if it was from the way he had grown up, constantly being scrutinized, or if it had just come from battling through one tough situation after another. Perhaps it was a combination of the two.

“Don’t apologize,” he reached over and placed his hand over mine. I gently pulled my hand free, tucking it safely in my lap, away from the temptation of touching his skin. “It isn’t…it’s not your fault.

I snapped my gaze back to his face incredulously. “Yes it is,” I choked out. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a five dollar bill, tossing it on the table. “I…I should go. I’m sorry I dragged you out so late,” I mumbled.

“Don’t go,” he stood as I stood, reaching for my arm. He stood a solid foot taller than me, his blue gaze penetrating down upon me. I was paralyzed in his shadow, words failing me. Despite looking so drained, he was still beautiful. “Come home with me,” his words were not a question, they were a demand. Every fiber of my being told me to walk away from him—to just turn around and leave, ignoring his invitation and forgetting how badly I wanted to be curled against his chest.

I couldn’t.

He had always gotten what he wanted; it was impossible to tell him no. He would hold a gaze, that charming smile on his lips, and the person would just melt to putty at his elegant fingertips.

I was no different, and tonight was under no other circumstances.

**

She reminded me so much of my ex-wife; her hair, her face. Even her nose felt familiar and reminiscent. Her personality wasn’t all that far off, either. The jokes, the intellect, the gentleness. Both my ex-wife and she held this power to make me feel at ease. Safe, comfortable. It was easy to talk to her; it always had been. Likewise it had always been easiest just to listen to her; to allow her to relieve herself of all that rested on her slender shoulders. I wasn’t being judged then. I didn’t have to be perfect or imperfect or anything at all. I could just be.

When my phone rang that night I had hesitated, watching her name as it flashed across the display screen. A mental debate lasting just a few seconds occurred as memories—both good and bad—flooded my mind. Just as quickly I’d made my decision, only thinking of what the repercussions of my actions would entail after I had agreed to meet her.

I puffed on a cigarette now, walking back toward the car with her at my side. We had spent an hour or so in the restaurant talking. If it weren’t for the clear awkwardness with which she reacted to me it would have felt as though things had never changed. But there was that awkwardness, apparent in the way she shifted her gaze when my eyes locked with hers, or avoided looking at me all together as she spoke. It was silent now; the first real silence that had settled upon us since I had arrived.

“When did you start smoking again?” she inquired from my side.

“About three years ago,” I answered easily. I exhaled, a cloud of smoke puffing in front of my face and dissipating into the crisp autumn air. From the corner of my eye I saw her nod, her hands stuffed into the pockets of that same Gap pea-coat I had seen her wear a thousand times before. It fit differently now; better. She raked her fingers through her dark hair as I held the door for her. As she got in, I noticed the highlights she had added and the length she had subtracted.

She looked older. She looked great.

“You look good,” I commented, fumbling to start the car.

“Thank you,” she replied quietly, tilting her head to look at me. “You look tired.” She had always been forward. Never lied or fibbed, just stated the truth no mind to how others perceived her. “Are you eating well?”

“When I eat.”

Silence fell upon us once more as I drove back to my apartment. The same apartment she had been in so many times before. The same apartment we had shared our first—and eventually our last—kiss. The same apartment she had once referred to as her safe place.

She hadn’t been there in three years. Hadn’t called or written in three years. Yet here she was walking up to the elevator at four in the morning, leaning on the same rail as she always had as the doors slid shut. “Do you remember the last time we were alone in this elevator?”

I turned my head toward her, away from the digital numbers flashing each floor as they passed. I eyed her for a moment—her mascara was running and her black boots were scuffed from wear and tear—and then returned my attention back to the passing numbers. Three. Four. Five. “No, I don’t.” I did remember. I’m sure she knew damn well I remembered. It was impossible to forget; her back pressed against the cool wall, fingers tangled in my hair as I looped mine through her belt loops and pulled her closer to me, kissing her fervently.

The doors slid open on my floor and I walked to my door, swinging my keychain around my finger. I fitted the key into the lock, pushing the door open and allowing her to enter ahead of me. She walked slowly from her position beside me, quietly making her way into the foyer. “Have a seat,” I offered, nodding toward the living room. “Do you want something to drink?”

“No thank you,” she had perched herself on the couch, ankles crossed. I had seen her sitting there many times before. It had always seemed like it was where she belonged. Even now, three years removed, she fit on that couch like she had been the missing piece of my living room set; an added piece of perfectly fitted décor.

I sat on the opposite end of the couch, folding my hands in my lap, unsure of where to take the conversation next. There were so many things I wanted to say to her, so many things I could just imagine us discussing. We used to sit on that very couch, talking endlessly about current events, politics, the latest book she’d read. Those things seemed so trivial as we sat there now; after all that had happened every thing seemed so trivial.

There was a tension in the air; a tension that had never been there before. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my Blend 27’s, suddenly in need of something to occupy my hands and mouth other than conversation. I lit one, taking a deep puff and exhaling slowly. She eyed me, then reached over and took the cigarette from my hand. She took a long drag then handed the cigarette back.

I’d never seen her smoke before.

“Nervous?”

“Uncomfortable,” she replied, adjusting herself on the couch. She sat on her hands, placing them underneath her thighs, and stared at her lap. “When did this get so awkward?”

I shrugged, taking another drag of my cigarette. “About the time it stopped being comfortable.”

She nodded, biting her lower lip, just as my ex wife would do. Her hair fell across her face, hiding her eyes from my view. In that instant she reminded me so much of my ex wife, which in turn reminded me of all the reasons she was a suitable substitute for her. Reminded me of all the reasons that a relationship between us would never work out, why things fell apart so fast.

“I don’t love him,” she finally spoke, her words sounding more like a statement to herself than to me. “I don’t.”

“You shouldn’t be with someone if you don’t love him.” It was simple enough; the truth.

She looked at her hands, swallowing. “Is that why you and I—“

“No.”

“Then why?”

“You know why,” I replied, my voice level, my eyes set to the floor. It had been so difficult for us both, our relationship. It was a relationship that shouldn’t have started to begin with but once it had it was a whirlwind of emotion and passion that seemed as though would never end. She had moved closer to me on the couch, sitting on her hands as she always did when she was nervous or uncomfortable in a situation. She was staring intently at her lap, engrossed in something I could not see was there. “I shouldn’t have asked you back here.”

She raised her eyes—as green as the last time I’d looked so deeply into them—and looked at me with a tremble in her lip. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. I could tell she was fighting back tears; I always knew when she was about to cry, the way her eyes seemed to instantly empty of everything, her lip quivering. I could almost physically see the tears forming.

“No, I’m sorry,” I countered, cautiously resting a hand on her arm. “I just…when I saw you sitting there…”

A small sigh escaped her lips and I thought I saw something resembling a tear trickle down her cheek. “I know,” she interjected. “Me, too.”

“I’ve missed you,” I added. It was the truth; I missed her more than I thought I could; more than I knew I should. “I think about you all the time.”

“Me, too,” she said once more. No longer sitting on them, she moved a hand to my face and rested it on my cheek. “I think about you every second of every day.”

“It still isn’t right you know,” I whispered, resting my forehead against hers.

“I know,” she nodded, tangling her fingers in my hair. She tilting her head so our lips were millimeters apart; I could feel each of her shallow breaths as they escaped her lips.

Without a second of thought, I closed the gap between our lips, wrapping my arms around her waist and pulling her into my lap. It was probably the worst decision I had ever made. Then again, looking back on things, I’d made quite a few stupid decisions when it came to her.

**

I had almost forgotten the taste of his skin; a bittersweet mixture of sweat and cologne, laced with the scent of cigarettes, coffee, and Herbal Essences shampoo. His touch was light, gently caressing any exposed skin he could find on my body. I arched my back toward him as his fingertips danced lightly over the flesh of my lower back—flesh he had found not because it was already bare but because he had inched the fabric of my shirt up to reveal it. He had a tendency to do that; always sliding his hand underneath the back of my shirt, pushing up the fabric and laying his chilled hands against the warmth of my back. It was arousing then and even more so now.

His hand slid down from my back, over my hip and to my thigh. He splayed his fingers out across the fabric of my jeans, pressing his lips harder against mine. He tasted stale, like the smoke of cigarettes. It was deliciously reminiscent of times we spent lying in his bed, talking, teasing, touching, and making love until the early hours of the morning. He would smoke a pack of cigarettes at a time if I let him. It was my constant teasing that he smoked enough to give the entire country lung cancer that got him to cut down and eventually quit.

The kisses were fervent; needy and wanting and he devoured my kisses the way a starving child would devour a piece of bread. And just like a starving child when he had finished that one slice of bread, he would beg for more. Each kiss became more ardent. He parted my lips with his tongue, running it over my own. His hands trailed a path down my back to my hips, his finger tips sinking into the fleshiest part of my body, pulling my body against his. I could feel him growing beneath me as I straddled him, his breath becoming short as my tongue fought against his.

He broke the kiss, panting. “I’ve missed you,” he repeated, his voice light and airy. He used that tone I had heard so many nights as I lie in his arms, curled against his narrow chest. He trailed hot kisses across my neck, occasionally darting his tongue out and dragging it along my skin. It sent a chill down my spine which elicited goose bumps across my entire body. My body had never had quite the same response to the touch of anyone else.

The reality of what we were engaging in dawned on me suddenly. I gently pulled away from him, biting my lower lip as I gazed at our intertwined limbs. It was as if the past three years of our lives had not taken place; our bodies folded together just as perfectly now as they had then and I foolishly wondered at that moment if it were a sign: Maybe we were meant to be together. I swallowed the thought along with a lump in my throat, sliding away from him on the couch. His eyes darkened as I did this, a sad expression unfolding on his face.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “You’re right—this still isn’t right.”

He was examining the herringbone pattern of the couch, his fingers tracing the tiny navy lines as he took deep breaths. I couldn’t tell if he was fighting the urge to touch me or to cry. He was losing the battle either way and stood, turning his back to me as he walked over to the picture window. I sat staring at my hands as they rested in my lap like a child who had just gotten caught doing something naughty. I wished there were words to rectify the situation; something I could say to apologize for the last three years and for calling him so suddenly tonight.

There was nothing.

I raised my gaze to his figure in the window, strangely silhouetted by the changing colors of the sky. It was going on six in the morning now, the sun just beginning its journey across the sky casting deep, burnt-crimson colors through the east-facing window. He had crossed his arms over his chest, the action causing the muscles in his back to move fluidly under the fabric of his plain white cotton tee. He stood with his weight on his right leg, his left loose so his hip stuck out. He did this when he was deeply engrossed in thought, usually trying to decide what chord progression should come next in a song, but sometimes he took the position when he was merely trying to decide what to have for dinner. I knew his thought process at this moment was far graver than what to eat: he was attempting to find a justification for what had just taken place and a suitable explanation for my sudden adverse reaction. I wanted to walk up behind him and wrap my arms around his slender waist as I pressed my cheek to his back, reassuring him that it was not he but I who was at fault. I refrained; something told me it would have been far too inappropriate at that point in time, especially if it had been the fight to touch me he was battling.

“Maybe I should go,” I finally suggested. He turned as I stood and I saw the tears that had grazed his cheeks. The defeated look upon his face caused my knees to give out and I fell back onto the couch, gazing up at him with a quivering lip.

It had always been painful to leave him in the morning.

Nothing was different about this moment except for the fact that it was a different pain ripping through my chest. It was the knowledge that if I chose to walk out that door it would be the last time I ever did. I didn’t have to ask him; I knew by the distraught look on his face, the pleading look in his eyes, that he could not handle it again. “Please don’t,” he whispered. I could do nothing but watch him as he walked back to the couch, not sitting on it but instead kneeling in front of me. We were now looking at each other eye-to-eye, and at this close proximity I was shocked to tears to see how vapid his eyes appeared. The sparkle that so distinctly identified him was missing.

The realization that he had been pushed to the edge and was holding on by the thinnest of threads hit so hard it knocked the wind out of me.

“I need you,” he continued. His eyes had glazed over and he was crying again.

I closed my eyes, fighting back the tears that were uncontrollably cascading down my cheeks. “Taylor…” my voice caught in my throat as I felt his fingers graze my cheek, brushing away the tears. He leaned over and gently kissed the corner of my left eye, my cheekbone, and finally, so softly I barely felt it, he kissed my lips. I opened my eyes, reached my fingertips out and ran them along his jaw line. “What do you want from me?”

“Leave Ethan; be with me.”

“You know I can’t…”

“Can’t what? Leave Ethan? You said yourself you weren’t in love with him.”

“Be with you. I can’t be with you.”

**

Her words bit like the sting of an open-handed slap. I had known it would come to this the entire time we’d spent together that night; the thoughts haunted the farthest reaches of my mind. I knew she would reject me. I had hoped by the sound of her voice—ever so relieved to have seen me again and ever so reminiscent of better times—that she would embrace me and welcome me back into her life. It had been so long since I had felt the comforts of her love and I longed day after day to revel in them once more.

She would not let me. Not so easily.

I sat back on my haunches, examining her for a full minute before I spoke again, quietly. “Why?”

“It’s wrong…”

“It isn’t.”

“It was then and it is now,” she defended. “You said so yourself.”

“It’s different now…” I let my voice trail off, wishing I had the courage to embrace her. The knowledge that she would push me away kept me even from leaving my hands anywhere near her body.

“They wouldn’t accept it; none of them would. They would only remember before; only remember you and I and…”

“None of that matters now, can’t you see that?” My words were pleading and in that statement alone I knew and she knew I was not merely begging her to understand that things could and would be different this time but that I needed them to be. I needed her now just as I always had. The difference now was that I could freely admit that fact not only to myself but to the entire world. And I wanted to. I felt the urge to run to the roof of the apartment building and shout it out at the top of my lungs, to run down the street telling everyone I passed that I was in love with this woman and I wanted to be with her for the rest of eternity.

She crossed her legs, left-over-right and sat back into the couch. She used to do this when she wasn’t getting her way in deciding what movie to watch or what to make for dinner. The way she gazed at me, one eye hidden under a lock of lavender-scented hair, told a story so incredibly heartbreaking I nearly began to cry. Her slender arms crossed in front of her chest; she was closing me off, trying hard to erase the last ten minutes from memory just as hard as I was trying to get her to admit they had happened. She looked so awkward sitting there, like she was a new student at the principal’s office on her first day.

The uncomfortable look in the green eyes that used to look upon me with such familiarity began to make me feel uncomfortable, scrutinized, kneeling in front of her. I felt myself begin to twitch, fiending for the nicotine one drag on a cigarette alone would provide me. I reached for my cigarettes, popped the box top slowly, slid one out gently, and placed it precariously between my lips as I reached into my pocket for my lighter. I lit the cigarette, taking a long, slow, glorious drag, inhaling every carcinogen known to man into my lungs, already damaged by twenty years of cigarettes, cigars, and marijuana.

“You still smoke too much,” her words were quiet, familiar and luxurious to hear, despite being reprimanding. “You always did.”

“And you never let me forget it,” I smiled at her, having moved to sit on the coffee table. “It’s a nervous habit you know.” She nodded, stray strands of jet-black hair falling back into her face despite her best efforts to keep them away.

And the silence set in. The uncomfortable, stifling silence I had never thought could ever settle between us. Yet there it was, quiet enough to hear the alarm clock in the next apartment going off, signaling the wake up call of whoever lived there. Quiet enough to hear our own heart beating wilding in our chests. “We could make it work.”

She jumped, startled by the sound of my voice, not expecting a break in the sounds of birds beginning to chirp outside, a shower running in a bathroom neither of us could see. She brushed imaginary strands of hair away from her face, shifted in her seat. A long pause ensued while she tried to collect her thoughts; I knew she was going over multiple ways to say her next statement, not wanting it to sound any other way than how she meant it. She did it often and sometimes to an obnoxious degree but it was endearing and sweet the way she always had to say exactly what she meant.

Hours seem to pass, time ticking away excruciatingly as I awaited her response. It finally came, soft and defeated, like she were giving up a long battle with a deadly disease. “I just don’t see how that is possible.”

I fixed my gaze at my feet, staring at the torn canvas of my old Chuck Taylor’s. They reflected my spirit: worn down, breaking, busting at the seams. I was too old to be wearing them anymore and yet I could not seem to bring myself to give up that piece of my youth. A pair of shoes I could never live without; in that instant shoes seemed the most trivial thing on the planet. I could walk barefoot forever so long as she was walking by my side.

She put her hand on my arm, drawing my gaze away from the ketchup stain that had somehow made its mark on the very tip of the lace of my left shoe. I followed her fingertips up her hand, over her narrow wrist to her elbow, her shoulder, her collarbone, chin, cheek, lips, nose, eyes. She was crying. Tears of sadness, defeat, uncertainty. I longed to taste the saline, to kiss her tears from her cheeks and tell her that everything would be fine once again. To promise her that things would be the way they used to be between us forever.

She did not want to hear those words. Those words she used to beg me to weave into the most delicious tales of how life would be for us together in the future. When she was older and I was wiser; when our families would forgive us. She did not want to hear those fantasies now; she wanted truth and the truth was that she was right and I was wrong.

Nothing could be as it used to between us. Not now, not ever again.

This realization entered her mind long before it had crossed mine and I knew it was something I should have seen coming before I answered my phone when she had called earlier. I suppose on some level I had anticipated it but, like the optimist I used to be, I brushed the negative aside and hoped for the best. “I want it to, really I do,” she was saying. I could barely make out her words, my mind too cluttered with all the things I wished I had said to her years ago, all the hugs and kisses I missed out on giving her and all the times I missed waking up to her in my arms, snuggled so close to me, our bodies so intertwined I couldn’t move for fear of waking her. It was painful to realize that those brief moments I had just felt her lips on mine would forever be the last.

“So why can’t you?” like a child I pushed, even knowing the answers I asked, wanting to hear them from her to make sure of their veracity.

She was the always the only one who could make things real to me.

**

My lip quivered and I tore my eyes from his. “Don’t make me say it,” I whispered. It was painful enough to even think about, much less to have to affirm it out loud to him. He knew; I knew he knew and I knew that he only wanted me to say it because if I said it it had to be true. It’s only ever true if someone else says it is so. I hated to be that person for him; I always had been and I had always hated it. I was never good with the big let downs; it was never my desire in life to be the bearer of bad news and yet for him I seemed to be the only one who could solidify the truth.

“Why?” his voice was urgent, angry, sad. I hated the way his entire jaw began to quake as he held back his tears, grinding his teeth to keep from screaming out in emotional agony.

He had had this same look of complete uncontrollable sadness and rage three years ago; it scared me to see it in his eyes again.

“It’s wrong; you know it, I know it, they know it. Do you have any idea what we will go through; the ridicule, the rumors? Think of what it would do to your son—what it already has done to him. We can’t be selfish anymore. We’re both too old for that now.”

The look that washed over his face, the entire slumping of his body, was suggestive of someone who just got slugged in the gut and had the wind knocked out of them. He began to let the tears flow, his entire body heaving as he cried. He wept for what seemed like hours, days, curled in a ball on the floor. I didn’t know what to do. If I tried to comfort him I would be contradicting everything I had just told him but if I just let him lie there…

I was cradling his head in my hands, lips brushing lightly across his forehead before I had a second to think about it. The sight of him breaking down was more than I could handle. “Please don’t cry Baby,” I pulled him into a sitting position, wrapping my arms tightly around his torso. He had lost so much weight.

He nuzzled his face into my neck sniffling, and then kissing the soft flesh below my ear. His long arms were wrapping me up in a hug; his long, lanky arms I used to joke with him about, saying he could probably wrap them around me twice. I wished he would. I felt his lips, wet with tears, finding their way along my jaw line to my own. I did not fight him; I allowed his kisses to engulf me the way they once did, drugging me with endorphins, causing me to put my better judgment aside.

It was this affect he had had on me our first night together.

I couldn’t fight the feeling in the pit of my stomach; it was growing stronger with each kiss, more demanding and it began to take control of my actions. I wanted him, needed him inside of me. Needed to feel at least one last time the power that resonated between us. Long before I could put a stop to what was going on our clothes had come off, our limbs had intertwined, and he had entered me, filling me completely.

In an instant we found ourselves engaging in an instinctual act, our bodies grinding against one another, teeth nipping, tongues licking, lips kissing. Breaths coming in gasps, grunts, and moans. On and on this went, every inch of my body aflame with his touch, for what seemed like hours. Finally we broke apart, panting, sweating.

“Stay with me.” His voice was not pleading, his eyes level and calm. He was thinking rationally, something we both knew I was never good at. “We can make this work, I know we can.”

All I could think about were all the people who had been hurt by our past; all the people we had both lost as friends and family due to our carelessness and selfish behaviors. And it dawned on me that in the last three years nothing had been reconciled: his son, once my best friend, still refused to speak to him, refused to speak to me. His brothers and his parents shunned him just as mine had done to me. His ex-wife, once like a second mother to me, had now become enemy to us both. We were all either of us had left: I was his saving grace and likewise he was mine.

Together we could start anew. With that realization I finally felt for the first time in a long time like things could once again be alright; I would be alright. Together, we would be alright.