Things happen. Things that you think you'll never get over. But you do. You move on. It gets better with time. You forget. Forgive. Whatever. Life goes on and you go on with it.

He stares at me so darkly, so hungily that I can only nod. Agree. Of course, I feel it. "I do", I admit.

I respond, thoughts dropping away, like pebbles plopping one by one in water, sinking down, down into dark oblivion.

You cold?' He chafes my arms. I haven't been cold since I moved here. This is something else. 'No. But you can put your arms around me anyway.

It's unclear who moves first. We're in each other's arms, lips locked, melded, hotly fused. Our hands drag over each other, reacquainting, remembering, almost as if we're both verifying the other one is real flesh and blood.

Sudden conviction races through me, almost terrifying in its total certainty. I can't give him up. He's the other part of me. He gets what it feels like to be separate from everything and everyone, to reject the path others lay out for you. We're the same. Two sides to the same coin.