Midnight Temptations

In the dim spill of city light that slipped between half-closed blinds, I lay awake, the room quiet except for the low hum of the night. My pulse felt too loud beneath the thin cotton of my shirt, as if it were trying to speak for the thoughts I kept brushing away. Outside, neon flickered and faded, painting slow-moving shadows across the ceiling (shadows that looked, if I let them, like the outline of someone leaning close).I drew a slow breath and let my fingertips rest against the hollow of my throat, not moving, just resting there, feeling the small, quick beat beneath skin. It was the simplest kind of touch, almost accidental, yet enough to remind me how long it had been since anyone else’s hand had lingered in that same place. Memory is unfair that way; it arrives uninvited and refuses to leave.I thought of you (inevitably, unfairly) of the way you used to trace idle patterns along my collarbone when we waited for sleep to find us. Nothing urgent, nothing demanding, just the quiet claim of knowing exactly where to touch to make the whole world shrink to the size of a bed. I closed my eyes and let the recollection settle over me like a second blanket, warm and a little too heavy.The clock on the nightstand blinked 12:07 in soft red numbers. Midnight had come and gone while I pretended I wasn’t waiting for something (a message, a dream, a knock that would never sound). My hand drifted lower, still slow, still careful, stopping just above the place where my heartbeat seemed to echo loudest. I didn’t cross that line; I simply let the possibility hover there, warm and unspoken, the way good secrets do.Somewhere across the city, maybe you were awake too, staring at your own ceiling, wondering the same useless, lovely things. Maybe your fingers remembered the exact weight of my waist beneath your palm, the way I used to sigh when you brushed my hair back just to watch my eyes flutter closed. Distance makes ghosts of us all, but tonight the ghosts felt generous; they let me borrow the shape of you for a little while.I turned onto my side, pulling the sheet higher, and smiled into the dark. Tomorrow the sun would rise and scatter these quiet indulgences, but for now the room held its breath with me, patient and conspiratorial. I whispered your name once, so softly it barely counted as sound, then let the city lights keep their watch while I drifted (halfway between memory and hope) into whatever gentle dreams were willing to find me.