16
Claire
Alex walked up behind me as I looked into my magnifying mirror and used my ring finger to dab night cream around my tired-looking eyes. He moved my hair to the side and leaned down to press his lips against my neck. It was a move he had made a thousand times before, yet we had somehow lost our natural ease with each other. His kiss felt stilted and forced.
I gave his enlarged reflection a sad smile in the round mirror, refusing to acknowledge aloud the awkwardness that now pervaded our interactions with each other. My hope was that if we didn’t directly speak of it, that this nervous tension might ease up on its own. So far, this plan of inaction wasn’t working.
Alex turned me around to face him. Disappointment surged through me when I pressed into his front and found that he
