In the Still of the Night…

She was where she needed to be at that time. The stillness and quiet, and the darkness all conspiring to make the secret even more worthy of being kept close…

As close as she was to him, with his heart beating a reassuring, muted rhythm in her ear… lying there with him wrapped around her like a cocoon that reminded her of chocolate milk… the warmth seeping through the cup and flowing inside her like a spring of all things good…

She slept.

Peacefully.  So Trustingly.  A hand resting over that heart, the other curving over his shoulder as if reassuring herself that he was there. There were no worries, no concerns… Butterfly kisses brushed her brow and hair and she slept the dreamless sleep of innocence…

And he…?

It surprised him still to see how she was with him. All those edges, the cold of her dissipated when she saw him. You could see the softness happen as it overcame her and it made his heart swell…

Could he with all the nothingness he had, bring her this?

 

If he could do this, surely he could do so much more….

And yet there was fear…

He could hurt her….

Not because he wanted but because he MAY have to…

May and might… Such broad abstract terms…

Of all that could and could not be…

So unreal…

And yet, in his world, which today was all that he held in his arms;

For an all too brief a night,

That may was the only thing real!