“Really?”

“I’m being serious.”

“You can’t expect me to believe that.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say. I can’t make you believe anything you don’t want to.”

“No, you can’t.” David let the words hang in the air. He dropped his eyes away from her, towards the ground, and opened his mouth. He closed it again.

He turned and left.

This was not the first time David had left her. The first time had been a misunderstanding too. She’d been spending time with Josh in secret since David didn’t approve of her being around other guys. “Guys and girls can’t be friends,” he loved to say. It had been how he’d confessed to her two years ago, that time they were on the couch watching a movie. He’d said that and kissed her.

This time it wasn’t because she spent time with Josh. Soon after David left the first time, Sharon called and told him that Josh was gay. It was easier that way. Easier than explaining Josh was like a brother, had always been, and always would be.

The most recent time was because she’d come to their apartment at an ungodly hour with her hair a mess, lipstick smudged, and smelling like cologne, assuming him to be asleep. But he had been waiting for her.

Yes, she’d been at the club, she said, but she hadn’t done anything, kissed anyone, gone any further. And he left.

She went into the bathroom. David’s toothbrush still intertwined with hers on the counter. She tied her hair back, threw cold water on her face. Their matching towels watched her. She tried not to be annoyed. He always left. He always came back. That’s how it worked.

The second time he left, one of his friends had matched with her on Tinder. She had flirted. Hey, dude, isn’t this your girlfriend? David had screenshots. But Sharon explained that her friends went on Tinder for fun—the girl who matched with David’s friend wasn’t even her but her friend pretending to be her.

And so David came back. And so Sharon was happy. She moved in with David a year ago, after her parents kicked her out. She had nowhere to go. David said she could live with him. It wasn’t a big apartment—the dining room, kitchen, and living room were combined—but at least the bedroom was on its own. It was just big enough for a queen and some drawers.

She grabbed her phone off the table and texted Josh. David had left again. He’d probably be back in a few days, but in the meantime, did Josh want to come over?

He said yes. She brushed her hair out, removed the smudged lipstick and eye-makeup, reapplied. She left her heels by the door but kept her red dress on. Josh buzzed the apartment to come in, and she let him. Before he could say a word, she was kissing him. He pulled back. Her lipstick was smudged again.

“Hey,” he said. “Are you sure it’s okay for us to be doing this here? What if David comes back?”

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Sharon said. “He won’t catch us.”

She took a step back and observed Josh, running a hand down his chest. His was wearing a cotton t-shirt and jeans, and he looked delicious.

“Even if he did,” she said, “I can just lie.”

She was cocooned. His arms wrapped around her, tracing shapes on her back. She was too hot, but she didn’t want to move, to break away, to lose this, whatever this was, so she stayed and breathed in the scent of his oatmeal soap and let her hands rest on his back like lifelines. She could feel his breath on the top of her head. His heartbeat was slow, rhythmic, as if he were sleeping.

They had been sitting on her bed, watching a movie on his laptop. They sat close, shoulder to shoulder, side to side, hip to hip. And then the movie finished, and they moved the laptop, but they stayed like that, talking, and she leaned her head on his shoulder while they talked, and she complained that it was bony, and he laughed and slid back until his chest was flat.

“Here,” he said.

She leaned her head on his chest. The indent between his shoulder and chest fit her head perfectly. Then they were on their sides, then they were together, only the pillow between them, face to face. They took turns looking at each other as they whispered. Once she opened her eyes while his were still open. His irises were normally too dark to see his pupils, but in the closeness she saw how wide they were, swallowing the brown. Their shared breath laughed. And he wrapped his arms around her, pulled her to him, and she buried her head in his chest and whispered “I love you” in a way he wouldn’t hear it.

It was dark outside. They felt caught in a strange peace, a safety—not the safety that nothing could hurt them, but that even if the ceiling caved in, flames were licking up their sides, the windows shattered, the room exploded—none of it would matter. They were on another plane of existence. The physicality of bodies, the shared heat, heartbeats, breaths, closed the distance of souls, and their souls entwined, at peace, calm. Time did not exist there. It was in the physical, but not the spiritual, mystical, second realm. And so when he finally shifted up, away, and the heat fell from them like an exhale, it was as if their souls were ripped apart.

“I’ll miss this,” he breathed.

“Me too,” she said. And she knew it was true. The next minutes, hours, days, weeks, years. She would miss this. They were ice and their fire melted them a little more every day. They were temporary.

She woke up the next morning to see him asleep on her couch, white light dappling his face, hair, the grey shirt he had not changed out of. He woke up as she looked at him, and he rubbed his eyes and put his glasses on.

“Good morning,” he said, voice cracking.

“Good morning,” she said.

She couldn’t shake the feeling that “good morning” meant “goodbye.”

i.

I am cold stones and

Cold hearts;

I have seen them come and go,

Come and leave,

Come and die,

Come and be

Consumed.

I am every eye and ear,

Every breath captured

Between the solitary

Arms I encase them in.

I am always

The last to let go.

ii.

Gilded brow;

Golden hair;

Clear eyes.

I can see him already,

Back bowed,

Broken under the

Thumb time has yet

To break me with.

For now he is here,

Posture straight,

Eyes narrowed and

Staring onward.

His tongue is

Sharp, but his sword is

Sharper.

His mind is

Sharpest.

iii.

How do you

Steal a heartbeat?

Let me tell you.

You steal a heartbeat

With pain,

With spears and words and

Power.

He is a thief.

I am cold stones and

Cold hearts;

But even what warmth

I harbor is greater

Than which flows through his veins.

iv.

For someone who has

Seen more dawn

And dusk than

Men at his feet,

I know he has

Lived too long.

Why has he yet to bow?

He snaps spines under

The weight of his

Demands,

Hides fear behind a

Blood-stained throne room.

There is nothing more dangerous

Than a man scared.

He knows his time should be up.

He grips his crown with

Iron knuckles, chains

His own ankles to the throne.

He does not wish to let go.

I want him to

Bow.

I want him to

Break.

v.

I am just eyes and ears and nothing more, yet I cheered when they washed his corpse out with the very words he hid, the words he banned, the ones he ran from.

The people were done. They were tired of hiding, of letting their lives bleed from their veins, of letting their fields dry and animals die.

The hunger in their eyes—I could taste it, with nothing more than my vision. The guards didn’t hold them back at the gates, for they were hungry too.

This is not the story of a good king or even a great one. This is the story of a dead king.

This is a story of a tyrant.

When younger, snow meant scarves, pink cheeks, and the promise of sweets as soon as I returned home; hot chocolate never tasted as rich as it did in warm, quiet safety. Fall meant bright colors and fairy boats, leaves floating in sidewalk puddles and dancing through mounds of thin gold; trees never seemed so full as when they shed their coats. Things made sense in how they didn’t; only now I realize that the more answers I receive the more questions I ask, until hot chocolate is bland and empty trees are nothing but captives, the footless forced to dance.