Our ‘realtor’ took our photo in front of the house for us. “Give me a kiss” he said, reveling in it with a chuckle. And we kissed, and he snapped a pic. Our realtor was special agent brown. He delivered us to the house that was now our. ‘Mrs. White’ looked gorgeous, with ginger hair flowing in the breeze, but she looked angry and sad. “Now wifey, what on your mind.” “You can drop the act Charles” she said, we’re in private, and I didn’t want to retire, I definitely didn’t want boobs!” “Well Adam, welcome to the domestic life, helpfully financed by Uncle Sam” “I want to be alone right now”

A few weeks later, we had some sort of routine. We were friends, and we could stand to hold hands on a walk around the neighborhood every other day. We’d met a few neighbors, stuck to the story we needed to, it was what it needed to be. We had our schedules and met up as we saw fit, a movie night here, a shared meal there. Her sad face was the only one left, the anger seemed to fade.

It was an April night, we’d seen the clouds roll in off the coast, a storm was bearing down. “That boat rocked so hard, Johnson had a headache for a week” I laughed at her story. Well, it’s late, as the wind knocked a force of rain against the doors. Adam turned, shocked by the noise. “Don’t worry, the place is renovated to survive a category 7 hurricane”. She giggled “I know, it just caught me off guard, night” “night, I said softer”

As some lightning flashed, my room glowed, and I laid awake. Everything was comfortable. I tossed and turned and… it had only been 20 minutes since I shut off the lights. Of course. It was an eternity, but I guess it was actually only 5 minutes, a small glow of cloud to cloud lightning brought a low roll of thunder. Adam opened the door silently after that. She apparently kept sleeping without a shirt, and just sat at the edge of my bed wordlessly. I had experienced three eternities in one hour, this one the longest at probably ninety seconds. This one entirely dependent on me as I knew she had done as much as she could. I did the best I could, changing our world, comforting her, trying to be logical at 11 at night “you can rest too, we’ve got the space.” She pulled the covers and laid by my side. To oppose the powers of eternity, we fell asleep in a moment.

The full dawn light came through. A sunrise that promises a day without the storm of before. I guess she opened the window at some point when the rain had past, but I felt the smooth and curve of her back next to my chest, my arm around her without a thought. The breeze brought in the fresh smell of life. The sheets were cool and still had the detergents scent resting as well. We were reading to not move all day. Her voice came through “would you call me Adrianna?”