A snippet from (An Anatomically Correct Diagram Of) Ice Partners & Other Disasters-
For a moment we stand awkwardly next to each other, each waiting for the other to make a move; as though we’re seven and nine again, and Dakota makes me nervous in a way that I sort of likes but can’t put my finger on why.
Then I slide my arms around him and pull him close.
He stiffens, immediately, like a puppet whose strings have been pulled all at once. Ever so carefully, I lean forwards and rest my chin on his shoulder.
“I’m not saying no,” I whisper, into his ear. “I just need time.”
And slowly, like it takes him time to remember how, he relaxes against me.
His head dips to the curve of my neck – I feel his breath warm on my skin, feel him breathe me in, the tension draining from him as he remembers how to ground himself in me.
“Okay,” he says, quiet, rumbling through his chest.
There are things I’ve always known about Dakota that will never change.
When he breathes, his ribcage pushes up and out, swelling against mine, the exhale of his breath tickling her skin, raising goosebumps.
When his hands move to my back, his fingers press into the dip of my spine, so gentle and reverent that I would barely feel it if I wasn't hyper-aware of him and the way he moves in the space around me.
When he nestles into the dip of my neck, his nose presses against the hollow of my clavicle, his body settling into place against mine with a simple, easy familiarity.
I find the breath catching in my throat.
It’s the truth to say that there are hundreds of ways in which I don’t know Dakota any more, and it’s kindness to say that it doesn’t matter. But in the minutes that pass with his arms around me, and the skyline of Paris a blur beyond the ridge of his shoulder, I know this much:
This is what we were made for – moulded for one another, not by design or by providence, but by force of will.
Our bodies will always know how to fit together, even if we ourselves flounder.
