-eng- Sleeping Cousin -rj353254- Info

A loon called across the water. Long and low and sad. Lena’s fingers twitched, then curled slightly, as if she were holding onto something in a dream.

I never told her.

Instead, I sat down on the floor. Cross-legged. Two feet from the chaise. -ENG- Sleeping Cousin -RJ353254-

Not because she was beautiful, though she was—the sharp line of her jaw, the dark fan of her lashes, the slow rise and fall of her chest. But because she was there . Unaware. Unguarded. Sleeping people exist in a different dimension, one where they cannot see you looking, cannot catch you staring. They are utterly vulnerable, and that vulnerability is a kind of power you steal without permission.

It was the summer of the broken air conditioner, the summer the magnolia trees dropped their petals like crumpled love letters onto the driveway, and the summer I learned that a sleeping person is a locked room. A loon called across the water

Either way, I have never sat so still in my life. And I have never felt so entirely awake.

I found her on the wide screened-in porch. The lake beyond was black glass, and the only sound was the rhythmic, quiet scrape of a branch against the screen. Lena lay on the long wicker chaise, one arm thrown over her head, the other resting across her stomach. She was wearing a thin white tank top and shorts. Her mouth was slightly open. Asleep. I never told her

No lights. No fan. No excuse to stay in my assigned room, a closet-sized box of heat and stale pillows.

Her fingers were warm. Light as a fallen petal. She didn’t pull away. She didn’t open her eyes. In that half-dream state, perhaps she thought the chaise was wider, or that the warmth beside her was just the memory of a body.

You are there.