I couldn't sleep with her next to me. The heat of her, the weight of her, the pressure of her next to me, none of it was what I had known before. I could barely believe she was there, breathing softly and quietly, but the signs of her seemed to be irrefutable proof.

I couldn't think with her next to me. Her brown hair splayed out on the pillow around her, curls and ringlets that covered her ears, ran down to her neck and then to her bare shoulders. Her presence, her pink lips parted just slightly, none of this seemed real, none of it seemed possible.

I couldn't be next to her. It simply didn't make sense, none of it did. That she would be here, not just here but in my bed asleep. I had to think back, had anything before remotely resembled this? My mind raced back, trying to recall something even a bit similar, but I was distracted as she mumbled something barely audible, completely insensible, and she stretched. Her body rolled over, nearer to mine.

I sighed, the newness of everything around me glowing. I struggled to commit every detail of the night to memory. To inscribe into my brain like chiseling onto a granite slab, but I could already feel the details changing slowly, the edges of the everything distending slightly. What shirt had I been wearing? I searched the floor do find it was a green one. Excellent.

As I fell inexorably into sleep, my eyes falling closed, I tried to remember, I tried to understand. It never came, it never would, but I slept.