We lit our cigarettes off of each other’s. We were never meant to be, no. We had sex, but I could never let her touch me. She couldn’t have extracted my soul from all the places it was hiding. That’s okay. We were what we were, when we needed it.

She was out on my balcony, late one night. I was in the kitchen, when I sensed a change in energy. I walked out onto the balcony to find her sitting with a cigarette in her fingers, trembling with tears streaming down her cheeks.

I sat down in front of her, and said gently, “Come here, sweetheart.” She slid into my lap, and sobbed into my shoulder. I remember the exact feeling of her back beneath my fingertips, as I ran my fingers up and down her spine. My god, I held her, and for the first time in so long, I felt something in my heart that resembled softness. It was a heartbreaking, heartmaking feeling.

She melted my permafrost in that moment. I cared. Suddenly, I could feel tenderness again. That was a frozen ocean melting and surging to meet her. I owe my change in seasons to her. My summer finally returned.