Page 31 of Hunger

She's awake.

I can hear her heartbeat from here, steady but not slow. She's lying in the dark with her eyes open, and she's waiting.

I hold still.

She speaks.

"I don't know who you are."

Something in me stops.

"I don't know what you are."

She hasn't moved. She's on her back with her eyes open, looking at the ceiling, not looking at me.

"Thank you for the rosin."

The room is silent.

I don't answer. The words land in me and break pieces of me I didn't know could be broken.

She turns over onto her side, away from the window, away from the corner where I'm standing.

I stay where I am.

She's still a while. Her breathing slows. Her body softens against the pillow. The hand under her chin loosens.

She sleeps.

I cross the room.

I move without sound. At the foot of her bed I look at her for a long time — the dark hair on the pillow, the line of her shoulder beneath the blanket, the soft rise and fall of her breath.

I lower myself to the edge of the bed.

The mattress barely registers my weight. The bed doesn't creak. She doesn't stir.

I can hear every breath, the slow steady drum of her heart. I'm closer to her now than I've ever been.

I look at her face. The crease between her brows is gone. Her lips are parted slightly and her breath moves across them. There's a piece of hair caught against her cheek.

I don't touch the hair.

I'm not afraid tonight.

The shaking that was in me last night is gone. I don't know what comes next, or what tomorrow looks like. But the wanting is sitting beside her now, and it's content to sit.

She thanked me.

The shape of the words is still in the room.Thank you for the rosin.

I sit on the edge of her bed and I listen to her sleep.

The hours pass.

The streetlight outside her window shifts as a cloud moves. The room goes darker and then lighter again. The wind is steady against the glass. Somewhere down the block a dog barks twice and falls silent. The radiator clicks.

She turns toward me in her sleep. Her face is close to mine. She murmurs something I can't make out and her breath moves my way, the faintest warmth.