4 AM

Bathed in moonlight he sat by the window. The distant lights of passing cars illuminated his broken frame at random intervals. Somewhere in the distance he could hear the sound of a dog barking, begging to let back into the warmth of the family home. He listened to the world as the analog clock ticked life away. 4 AM it tocked. He called it the twilight orchestra.

A soft rustle came from the bed as its occupant rolled over in her sleep. His eyes traced her slender frame. Soaking in her existence like a death row inmate might soak in their ever waning time. He couldn’t say how long he’d been sat there. In the hollow hours time seemed to be a concept that held little weight. He cast his mind back to the night they had met, flashes of bright red hair, snippets of laughter and a brief second of vulnerability that lasted just long enough for her to slide into his heart and plant roots. The imperfection of memory robbed him of perfect recall but left him with abstract slideshows of beauty. He couldn’t remember the dress she had worn, he couldn’t remember the colour of lipstick she had worn or how she had worn her hair. But he could remember in exact detail the way the material of that dress had felt to touch. He would never forget how that lipstick had tasted and nothing would ever banish from his mind, the smirk on her face as she had let that hair down and in the dead hours of the night had let him in. He recalled how despite the fact he had never been in that house before, going back to hers had felt more like coming home than anything ever had.

The body wrapped up in the bed stirred again, stretching out an arm as if looking for something. The arm withdrew back to the bundle of blankets before a disembodied voice broke the peace. ‘Stop staring at me you perv, get back in this bed, I know just the thing to help you sleep.’ Her voice had adopted that husky tone that could only be acquired with the perfect mixture of contentment and tiredness. A smile crept itself across his face as he rose from his seat and slid himself into the bed. She looked up at him and draped an arm across his scarred chest. Their eyes met, deep hazel connecting with emerald green. Her eyelids drooped before eventually closing completely. He could tell by the way her breathing deepened that she had returned to her dreams. He joined her hand with his own before closing his own eyes, desperate to meet her in whatever adventure she was having. His last conscious thought before sleep took him ‘How did I get so lucky.’