IT'S HARD TO SAY GOODBYE
He fell asleep afterward.
The deep real sleep of someone whose body had finally decided the night was finished and given itself over completely. His breathing is slow and even. His face with that younger quality — the careful guarding of his waking hours absent, just a man at rest.
His arm around me.
His hand — open, loose in sleep — resting on my stomach.
I looked at his hand.
I looked at it for a long time.
I pressed my hand over his. His palm is warm against my stomach. The specific weight of it there — unconscious, placed by a sleeping body that didn't know what it was touching, that didn't know what lay beneath it, that was simply resting where it had landed.
I lay there, and I didn't move his hand.
I lay there, and I held it in place with both of min
