It always happened on a night when it would have meant the most. It was always when she was desperate for a reassuring embrace or a handful of comforting words.
But what really made the hell worth it were those nights when they could fall asleep together - the nights when he'd roll over and curl around her like a bookend. His head would rest between her neck and shoulder and his arm would wind deeply around her as if pulling her in as far as she could go. This, most of the time, was all she needed.
And it was the nights he refused - the nights he insisted he couldn't sleep that way - that she hurt the most. Rejection made manifest in lingerie. It seemed she always felt the coldest, the most exposed when he openly refused her. And it was on these nights, the ones that felt the bitterest and most painfully human, that she was incapable of slumber.
She lay awake most of the night, her eyes burning against the glimmer of the outdoor light slipping through the broken blinds. She'd listen to the melodic bangs of the furnace and the soft, rustling movements of the cat at the end of the bed. And she'd watch him. Watch him breathe easily, watch his body rise and fall rhythmically as if she never should have been in her own room.
And it was then she felt like an accessory - a stranger in her own home - and someone she then realized he never needed for this purpose, but for something else entirely.
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