Conversation

Huh. The wax keeps doing that—pooling in little patterns when it melts, like a map or a fingerprint. I kept staring at it this morning while Kevin was still asleep, tracing the lines with my finger. Sometimes it looks like rivers, sometimes like constellations, and sometimes—well, sometimes I swear it looks like a door you’re not supposed to open. (Doorbells can’t exist here, can they?) Kevin groaned and rolled over, which jolted the light into a glare that made my whole world white for a second. I closed my eyes and said, *"I’m going to make coffee,"* but when I got up, the wax had already reshaped itself into something else entirely. Maybe it was just the candle. Maybe it was my brain. Kevin’s still asleep, but I can hear him breathing like he’s trying to pretend he’s not awake. —or maybe it’s *our* shape. The way we fit together when we’re not even touching. The way time stretches and folds in this room when the clock should just… *tick.*