she feels

She feels connected when he is beside her. Not always to him, specifically, but just somehow connected. Sometimes she thinks is it his warmth; sometimes, she thinks, it is his breathing. Sometimes, she thinks, she just imagines it, because she wants to feel it so. Those times, she weeps, softly, doesn’t let him see, doesn’t let him know. An aunt told her, once, (her favorite aunt) that love hurts and she thinks she is beginning to understand, at these moments, the latter, specifically. She is young, still, and wonders if it will always be this way, that she will want it so badly and that no one will ever be able to make the ache disappear. Because she is young, she hopes, and hope is a good thing, she knows. So, she dries her eyes and moves closer to him. He sleeps. She does not, but will, eventually, of course.