the habit of being

Not a week after we met, I sat on the edge of his bed, only a mattress on the parquet floor. Navy blue fitted sheet. White stains. Jumbled blankets, caseless pillows. His fingers traced me, lingered along my back. Just slightly, so tenderly, after we made love the second time. He read me like Braile, and still his eyes followed, shadow by bone by curve. I turned and said “you touch me the way I’ve wanted to touch people all my life.”

. . .

Two months after we broke up, I crawled out of his arms at 2 am, left him sleeping in my room while I scrubbed the bathroom and kitchen with a passion. It was nearly a year since I slept with anyone in my own apartment. I did my laundry, washed the dishes, and mopped. I wiped the corpses of ants killed with Fabreeze and Windex off the edges of the sink. In my underwear, I stood in the tub fighting scummy tiles, cleaning the long-neglected spots. When satisfied that there was nothing else I could do without waking him, I slipped back onto the twin-size mattress. I held him until morning. Until afternoon.