There was a particular way she looked in the morning light, just after waking, before she had fully registered that he was watching. Soft-faced. Hair everywhere. He had been looking at her like this for years and it was not getting old. It struck him in the middle of his chest, a tightness that was not quite grief and not quite pain. That she was a real person in the world and she had chosen to sleep next to him. He didn't want to wake her. He didn't want to not be looking either. He lay on his side with his hand resting on her hip, the bone of her, the warmth under his palm, and it felt like the right kind of holy.
