Please, take my heart

30.) Strawberry kisses

I wake to the feeling of warmth.

It takes me a moment to realize it isn’t the blanket.

There’s an arm draped over my waist, heavy with sleep, fingers curled slightly against my stomach. A slow, steady breath ghosts against the back of my neck. The kind of warmth that seeps into my skin, into my spine, making me forget, just for a second, that this isn’t supposed to be happening.

I don’t move.

Not yet.

Because I know exactly who’s behind me.

And if I move, if I breathe too sharply, if I shift just an inch, everything will change.

But then I feel it.

Pressed against the curve of my lower back, solid and unmistakable.

My stomach clenches.

My brain stalls.

And in that tiny, involuntary second of realization, something shifts.

His breathing changes—just slightly—but I feel it. A sharper inhale. The slow pull of awareness creeping in.

He’s waking up.

And so is his body.

The moment stretches impossibly thin, like the universe is holding its breath with us.

For one unbearable second, I think maybe he’ll pull away. Maybe he’ll pretend he was never here at all.

But he doesn’t.

His fingers twitch against my stomach. Not a flinch. Not a retreat. Just—something.

My pulse stumbles.

I should move. I should pull away, sit up, do anything other than what I do next.

Which is shift—just barely. Just enough that I feel the way his chest rises in response.

The air shifts.

And then—so softly I almost miss it—he exhales. Not in resignation. Not in discomfort. Just in this slow, almost reluctant acceptance of what’s already happening.

His grip on my waist doesn’t tighten. But it doesn’t disappear either.

And now I don’t know if I’m breathing at all.

We stay like that—neither moving, neither acknowledging the way we’re wrapped up in each other—until he shifts, just barely. His nose brushes against my shoulder, a whisper of a touch, light enough that it could be an accident.

I don’t think it is.

And that realization sinks into my ribs, settles low in my stomach like something dangerous. Something I shouldn’t want.

Then, suddenly, the warmth disappears.

He jerks back, fast, like he just realized what he’s doing. His arm slips from my waist, his body no longer pressed against mine.

“Shit,” he mutters under his breath.

And then he’s up.

Gone.
_________________________________________

The morning is unbearable.

Not because of what happened—because of what didn’t.

Because of the way he pulled away so fast, like he was seconds from losing control. Because of the way he barely met my eyes over coffee, the way his jaw clenched when I stretched a little too much on the couch, the way his grip tightened around his pen every time I so much as shifted in my seat.