The Room We Built

I feel her touch before I even open my eyes — fingers following the line of my spine like it's hers to follow.

"Morning," she whispers, her lips brushing the shell of my ear.

I mumble something—half a word, half a wish. I'm still drifting between the edges of sleep and her skin, and I want to stay lost there for a bit longer.

"You were talking in your sleep again," she says, voice curled in a smile. "Something about the sky being gone."

I turn over. She's already dressed in that soft grey shirt she always wears in the mornings, skin glowing where the neckline slips. Her hair's a little damp — she must've showered — and I can smell the cedar soap on her skin.

My fingers wrap around her waist. I guide her down gently, and she folds into me like she always does before the day catches up.

"The sky can wait," I murmur, my lips against her collarbone. "I've already got you."

She laughs softly, threads her fingers through my hair, and we melt into each other again. This is how mornings are for us — something slow, something real, something we never put into words.

By the time we stumble into the kitchen, the coffee's already brewed — two mugs set out, steam rising in slow, lazy spirals.

The lights settle into a hush. The air holds a quiet warmth. Outside the window, the garden glistens with pretend rain, the same endless green. Somewhere in the distance, birds sing on schedule.

We sit across from each other. Strands of burnished hair slide down her shoulder, catching the warm light as she pulls her leg beneath her. Her dark brown eyes meet mine over the rim of her mug, thoughtful and a little far away.

"Tell me something new," I say.

She blinks. "Like what?"

"I don't know. Surprise me."

She pauses and stirs her coffee. "I used to dream about being a dancer."

I raise an eyebrow. "You?"

She shrugs. "Ballet, maybe. Or contemporary. The kind of dancing that makes your feet bleed but feels worth it."

I nudge her knee under the table. "You'd have shut the whole room up just by stepping into the light."

Her smile is warm. But it doesn't reach all the way.

Later, we end up on the floor, wrapped in blankets that don't quite match. She reads from an old paperback with a cracked spine. I don't even remember where we got it. Her voice wraps around the words like silk, and I don't follow the story so much as the way her mouth moves when she reads.

She pauses mid-sentence. "You're not listening."

"I am," I say.

"Tell me what just happened."

I grin. "You took a breath and made me fall in love with you again."

She rolls her eyes, but there's color in her cheeks.

The room dims with the setting sun — which isn't real, but pretends well enough. Everything about this place is curated comfort. The couch never sags. The rugs never wrinkle. Nothing ever bleeds.

Except us.

That night, she straddles me, her auburn hair falling like a curtain around my face.

"I'm still here," she whispers. "You're the only place I ever want to be."

I kiss her slowly, trying to keep the moment from slipping.

She tastes like cinnamon and lies. I drink both.

I wake alone.

Her side of the bed is cold.

The garden is grey.

The birds are silent.

And on the far wall, a door begins to glow. It pulses gently, no more than a slit of light in an otherwise seamless room.

My stomach tightens. I walk to it barefoot, still shirtless, and my heart aches like it's bracing for impact. The air around the door hums.

I don't touch it.

She's sitting by the window again when I find her, wrapped in a blanket, staring at nothing.

"You saw it," I say.

She doesn't turn. "Yeah."

"You're leaving."

Silence.

"You always leave," I add, the words coming out bitter.

Her voice stays flat. "Because only one of us can."

I swallow the heat in my throat. "And you never choose to stay?"

She turns her head slowly. Her eyes are tired, older than they were yesterday.

"You don't understand," she says.

"Then talk to me," I shout. "Please. Just say something. Anything. I don't want you to disappear again."

Her lips part like she wants to argue — then seal. She looks away.

We barely exchange a word after that.

The coffee sits on my tongue like ash. A tree in the garden glitches, vanishing for a moment before returning like nothing happened. The birds are quiet.

She kisses me harder than usual before bed.

"Slow down," I murmur, but I don't mean it.

Her mouth claims mine again. Her fingers slide into my hair, tugging just enough to pull a sharp breath from me. She presses closer, skin to skin, and I stop thinking.

Her hands are trembling as they cup my face. Thumbs trace the edge of my cheekbones, mapping every detail with soft desperation.

I drag her closer, my hands digging into her waist. Her body arches into mine, heat rising off her skin. Her breath catches against my mouth.

She pulls back for a second, breathless. "Say my name."

I whisper it against her lips.

The kiss deepens. Slows. Her mouth moves against mine with quiet hunger, and I feel her quiver.

When she finally pulls back, there's a tear waiting at the corner of her eye.

"I love you," she says.

I slide my hands up her back. "Then stay."

She sighs, and her forehead leans into mine.

"You know I can't."

She doesn't pull away. The silence says what we won't, and the moment ends on its own.

She's gone in the morning.

The door is gone too.

The room reboots around me.

The books reset. The garden returns to bloom. The birds chirp like the script demands.

But the bed doesn't lie. The sheets stay cold where she was.

No amount of light or order can warm that space, for it holds her shape... and the ache of its absence.

I don't know how long I wait.

I eat. I sleep. I scream. I cry into the couch until the fabric stiffens from dried tears and the smell of sweat clings to it.

And then, one morning, she's there.

Wearing the grey shirt again.

Hair still damp.

Smiling like nothing's broken.

"Good morning," she says, voice like sunlight.

I stare at her. "You're back."

She frowns. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

My blood turns to ice.

She pours her coffee like she always does. No sugar. Same seat. Same off-key hum.

She doesn't remember.

I sit across from her, trying to smile. Trying to breathe.

She reaches for my hand. "Hey. You okay?"

I nod.

Lie.

"Just... tired."

Days blur into each other.

We fall back into each other — in touches that linger too long, in kisses that start slow and end in hands gripping skin.

We make love slowly, then urgently, then again just to be sure we're still here. I hold her hips like they're the last solid thing in the world. She bites my neck when she's about to fall apart.

She laughs in the bath while I wash her hair. I kiss the soap from her skin.

As we dance in the kitchen, barefoot and tangled in each other, I think maybe this is what happiness feels like. The song is long forgotten, but we're still moving.

She stays.

Longer than before. Long enough to make me wonder if the loop is breaking — or if I've simply lost track of how long it's been.

But the door always returns.

And with it, the quiet unraveling.

I always find her sitting beside it with her arms folded tight across her chest.

"I hate this," I say. "I hate you for doing this again."

Her voice is distant. "You don't mean that."

"You could stay."

"You could let me go."

I bite down on the scream building in my chest. "I don't want to forget you again."

"Maybe..." she stops. "Maybe it hurts less if you do."

She shakes her head. "I don't know. I don't know anymore."

Whatever truth I wanted slips away the moment I see her struggle to hold herself together.

Later, we lie in bed. I feel her breathing against me while her eyes trace the cracks in the ceiling.

"You used to draw," I say.

She nods.

"You said you wanted to be a dancer. And a vet. And a skydiving instructor."

She smiles faintly. "I had too many dreams."

"I remember all of them."

She goes still.

"Even when you don't."

Her voice is a whisper. "You always say that."

I shift to face her. "What does that mean?"

She hesitates. "You're not built to forget."

Something cold opens inside my chest. A sinkhole where my heart used to be.

"What do you mean built?"

She meets my gaze. "You're not supposed to ask."

"I'm not supposed to what?"

She pulls away. "It's not important."

My voice is shaking. "You think I'm not real."

She doesn't answer at first. Then, softly—still not looking at me—

"The door only opens for a person."

The silence that follows is unbearable.

I stop breathing for a second.

She adds, almost gently, "But you feel real to me. And that's enough."

She leaves the next morning.

The bed is cold again.

The garden flickers.

The room sighs, resetting.

I stay... like always.

When she returns, she kisses me like we're new again. I kiss her like I've been starving. We burn through a week like it might outrun the truth of our situation. Skin, warmth, hunger — all of it a distraction.

But the cracks come anyway.

They always do.

And one morning, she's already at the door.

She touches my face. "I love you."

My voice breaks. "Then why do you keep leaving me?"

Her eyes glisten, and the same cruel line slips from her mouth like it was waiting there all along. "Because I'm the only one who can."

"Liar."

She flinches.

"Is it that you leave," I ask, "or that you can't let me go through it?"

She doesn't speak. Doesn't blink. But something in her stillness shivers.

I take a step closer, "You always sit by the door when it appears. You never let me near it."

She looks down and I can feel the truth stealing the oxygen from her lungs.

"Maybe you're not watching it for yourself," I say. "Maybe you're guarding it from me."

Her fingers twitch at her sides.

"You always ask me to stay. You change the subject. You hold me like I'm about to vanish."

She lowers her gaze further, and her mouth moves — once, twice — but nothing comes out.

"What are you really afraid of?"

Her voice is barely audible. "Please don't."

I don't even know why it hits so hard. She barely says a word, but it tears right through me. Like some thread I've been holding together finally snapped, and now all I can do is sit there, trying not to fall apart in front of her.

If only a person can leave... and she always returns...

I step closer to the door.

It flickers kindly. It is offering me mercy.

My hand lifts.

She doesn't stop me.

And that hurts more than if she had.

My fingers hover inches from the light — and I think: maybe this time I'll choose myself.

Maybe... if I go... I won't come back.

Maybe I'll wake up somewhere else.

Somewhere real.

Where the garden doesn't flicker.

Where coffee burns when it spills.

Where she exists only as a memory — not a loop. Not a simulation.

And she'll still be here.

Alone.

I step back and sit beside her.

She doesn't look at me, but she leans into my shoulder like she always does when she's scared. I wrap my arm around her and rest my cheek against her hair.

The door hums.

Her fingers brush mine.

I could walk through.

I could end the question.

I could be real.

But not with her.

And suddenly that word means nothing.

I kiss her temple.

"I'm not going," I whisper.

She doesn't speak, but her breath catches on the way out.

She knows what I've chosen.

That night, we lie tangled under the blankets with her legs around mine and her hands in my hair. We don't speak. We don't have to.

The room hums around us patiently.

I don't sleep. I stay close to her as long as I can, holding her against me in the dark, breathing in the last of her warmth.

I kiss her shoulder. I trace her spine. I pretend time won't move forward.

But it does.

And when the door vanishes, a sense of peace settles in. I know she's gone, but I'm not afraid.

She'll find her way back.

And I'll be here, like always.

Maybe that's all I'll ever be.

This is the room we built.

And I'll stay here

in this loop,

in this love,

forever half-awake —

just to hold her again

when she returns.

Because I would rather never be real

than be real without her.