She grins. “I like to live on the edge.”
I lean forward, bracing my elbows on my knees, studying her. “I don’t.”
She sobers slightly, but there’s no tension in it. Only curiosity.
“You don’t have to,” she says quietly. “Not tonight.”
Something shifts in my chest. That’s when it hits me. I don’t feel like I’m bracing for impact anymore.
For years, my life has been about endurance. Function. Getting through the next thing. There was always another crisis waiting, another chart to review, another night I could stay late so I didn’t have to go home and sit with myself.
But tonight? I don’t want to escape this moment. I want to stretch it.
I watch her as she gathers the cards, humming softly under her breath.
I haven’t taken a vacation in years.
Not a real one at least. Not something chosen for joy instead of obligation.
The realization settles heavy and strange, like discovering a missing limb you’ve been compensating for without realizing it.
Melissa looks up. “You okay? You just got … quiet.”
I nod slowly. “Yeah. I’m thinking.”
“Dangerous again,” she teases.
“Very.”
She shifts closer, resting her head briefly against my thigh. The contact is casual, like it belongs.
For the first time in a long time, I’m not afraid of what it might mean.
She’s joined me on the couch, curled into my side now, the game abandoned somewhere between her winning and mepretending I didn’t care. One of her legs is stretched across mine. The television is on, but neither of us is watching it.
She smells like my soap. That shouldn’t matter as much as it does.
I rest my hand absently on her knee, thumb tracing slow, thoughtless circles. The motion is familiar already, instinctive.
“You’re quiet again,” she says.
I glance down at her, at the way her cheek is pressed against my chest, her eyes half lidded and relaxed. She looks safe here. Comfortable. Like she isn’t bracing herself for the other shoe to drop.
“I was thinking,” I admit.
She hums. “You do that a lot.”
“Occupational hazard,” I say, echoing myself from earlier.
She smiles faintly but tilts her head to look up at me. “What about?”
I hesitate because saying it out loud makes it real.
“I realized I don’t know how to stop,” I say.
Her brow furrows slightly. “Stop what?”
“Working,” I reply honestly. “Running. Filling every quiet moment with something productive so I don’t have to sit with myself.”
