Talking at Night

by Claire Daverley

I can’t, Rosie says. But you do? Marley asks. Rosie doesn’t say it, cannot bring herself to speak. And that, she knows, is answer enough, as well as spectacularly inconvenient.

Don’t miss out on something good, simply because it’s different.

I’d say you just love the idea of her, then, she says. You’re pinning everything on something you’ve never even had. Something that’s not real.

So long since she has allowed herself anything that even remotely resembles love.

he keeps looking at her like that until she pulls him into her, with her mouth on his, and he tastes, to her, the way he did before.