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You're in bed.
The room around you is nothing but white and shades of blue. It is the room she grew up in, and her personality is obvious everywhere you look. The world outside the windows is gray, and the sounds of the rain and thunder are a comfort. You cannot leave to return to your own apartment until the storm passes, and her parents will not return here either until that time.
Your head is on her shoulder, your body stretched out alongside hers, and her hand is in your long hair. She's humming a song you don't recognize but like anyway, because she is the one humming it. Your legs are longer than hers. When you look, you can see the teal nail polish on her toes, and, beyond that, the purple on your own.
The house is quiet around you, save for the snoring of her parents' dog, who is curled up somewhere you cannot see her.
She brings her other hand up so she can cradle your face, and your chest aches at how tender the motion is, like you are something valuable and important. Like you are someone she loves.
She loves you. She says so, her hand on your face, the sound of her heartbeat echoing in your ear.
She loves you, and you love her in return.
*
You shower together, sneaking into her parents' bathroom—as though there is anyone else around, as though you have reason to be afraid—because her own shower isn't large enough for both of you.
Both shower heads work perfectly, and the two of you stand beneath the spray. The lights are off, and so the room is dim, but you can still see one another, which is all that matters. Like this, she is short enough that she can press her faces against your neck, and so she does, her skin warm against yours.
You wrap your arms around her body, so, so happy to have her here with you.
You scrub the bar of soap between your hands and then she allows you to wash her. You begin with the bones just above her shoulders and continue down over the strong muscles of her arms until you can knead sudsy water onto the skin between her fingers. You move on to her sturdy hips, the hard, smooth curve of her stomach, the undersides of her breasts. You ghost your fingertips over her neck and collarbones and wash behind her ears. You ask her to turn. You revisit the soap for a moment and then you massage her back. She groans, softly, in pleasure and relief, because she has been working too hard recently, as she always does. You slide your hand down over her buttocks and kneel behind her. She makes a sound again, this time more hesitant, because her thighs have well-developed muscles, but they also have cellulite. Your own thighs do too, but still you twist so you can meet her eye, your hand on the outside of her knee to steady yourself, before you even think of continuing, because the most important thing is that she feels comfortable, and safe. When she nods, you resume your task.
She turns when you ask, and so you clean along the length of her legs and her feet, reverent, but also careful to not tickle her sensitive arches by touching too softly. She needs no help keeping her balance, but you are slow to pick up each foot and put it down, so she always knows what you plan to do before you do it. When you finish, you lean forward and kiss the crease where her thigh meets her hip once, then once more. The skin is a little paler here than it is on the rest of her body, because it hardly ever sees the sun.
She takes your hand and brings it all the way to her mouth, kissing the skin and bones between your second and third knuckles, and then she cups your chin and tilts it up until you stand. Her eyes are so blue, even in the half-light, and they are beautiful. She is beautiful. Your mouth meets hers and you kiss, standing pressed together in the small space where neither of the shower heads can reach you. The water has washed most of the soap from her body already, but you run your hands along her skin anyway, just in case.
When she pulls away, she maneuvers you so you are standing beneath the spray and keeps you there until your hair clings, heavy and wet, to the back of your neck and trails down along the valley between your shoulder blades. Then she backs you up until you can sit on the bench in the corner, and so you do.
The shampoo bottle clicks open, audible even over the sound of the running water, and the familiar scent of the shampoo that she and her mother must both use surrounds you. You breathe it in, and wonder if you would have used the same shampoo as your mother, had she lived past your childhood.
She works you hands into your hair, drawing you from your memories, and alternates rubbing her fingertips and the heels of her palms against your scalp until you have to lean against the wall of the shower for support. She smiles at you and you smile back, feeling loose and languid and nearly divine. You hope this is how she felt, earlier.
You rinse your hair yourself, because she's just barely too short to do it well on her own. You tease her about it as you try to work out the tangles she accidentally created. She plasters herself against your side, the curve of her breast soft and noticeable on your skin, and you stop teasing after that.
*
You're in bed.
She braids your hair back from your face as you sit together in a nest of blankets and pillows, naked because there's no reason not to be, right now. You would return the favor, offering a braid of her own, but her hair is too short for it without pins, now that she's cut it, and you don't know where she would keep such things in a house she no longer lives in. In the apartment you share, she simply borrows yours.
It's warm, here in her old room, but not unpleasantly so, and it is still raining outside of the windows. Somewhere in her room, the dog continues to snore lightly, tired from a day of doing absolutely nothing.
You understand the sensation, and bask in how luxurious it is.
You turn so you can curl into her curves instead of away from them. The braid in your hair unravels as it slips from her fingers and she laughs at you, but she also allows you to tuck yourself up under her chin and put one of your legs on top of hers. She wraps her strong arm around your body, and her heartbeat echoes in your ear, slow and steady. She sighs, and you feel the air whisper over your shoulder.
You love her, and you tell her just as much, quietly, barely louder than the rain outside the windows.
You love her, and she loves you in return.