Marion & Leo

as close as it gets

 It was the perfect Sunday, curled up together under his quilt, the room sealed save for a harsh wind blowing through a small crack under the window. He had opened his door for me at 8 AM, rubbing his eyes but rescuing me from the cold, pulling me into his warm chest and kissing the top of my head before going to brush his teeth. And now, laying on my back with his arm draped over me and his head laid right next to mine watching Jimmy Fallon re-runs on his laptop, the only things still cold were my toes.

He adjusted to wrap his arms completely around my small frame, his fingertips soft on the bare skin of my waist, exposed by my loose fitting shirt and whispered, "I'm sorry I can't be enough for you," while he buried his face into my neck, hiding from the world in his sealed off room.

After months of trying to know him deeply, I still couldn't tell when he was mentally light-years away from me, and that put a stone right on top of my heart, weighing it down. "Where did that come from?"

He was slowly breathing me in, his lips moving against my skin as he said, "Just something I think about a lot."

I closed my eyes, searching for his hand under the quilt. "Leo, you're enough for me."

He found my hand, closed his fingers around it desperately, as if I was trying to leave, and said "Okay." He was silent before saying, "You're just, so... sure of yourself, and I'm not, and that frustrates you."

"It doesn't frustrate me," I whispered, my heart heavy and my lungs full of water. "I'm sure of you, and you will be." I turned my head to push my forehead against his, suffocating on the thick air. "You're enough for me."

He kissed me quickly, so familiar, then he brought my hand to his heart, and I could feel it racing in his ribcage, pounding through his skin. "This isn't a hookup for me anymore, Marion."

I breathed, smelling him; I smelled his clean, soapy scent, a smell that I no longer just found lingering in my hair or in my bed, but in my idea of the future. "It stopped being just a hookup awhile ago for me, Leo."

And then, both of us half sitting up, I saw him use all six feet and five inches of himself to tell me he loved me, and those words "I love you" echoed through my head, and I said, "Me too, I love you too."

He blinked a few times and smiled halfway as he said, "But we don't believe in true love."

A tear threatened to spill, and I smiled and said, "So what do I feel?"

He paused, his eyes watery too, and brought his thumb to my cheek to catch the small tear. But he left his hand there, something he'd never done before, and said, "As close as it gets."