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My heart shrank.

She was mine.

She would always be mine.

But not everything we were given was meant to be kept.

She saw me retreating, saw me burrowing back into the emotionless corner of my mind and slipping the mask back on. Pulling to a sitting position, Halley spoke before I could cut the thread. “Take a picture,” she said.

I frowned. “What?”

A smile brightened her mouth as she crawled over the mattress, leaned over, and snatched her camera off the floor. “A picture. To save the moment.”

Halley was particular about her moments. She didn’t take photos on a whim, didn’t capture unworthy things. This was a moment she wanted to preserve.

She handed me the camera, and I stared at it like it was a foreign language textbook.

“You just press the button,” she said, still smiling. “Right here.”

Pushing the camera toward me, she moved in closer and showed me what to do. It was heavy in my hands, an uncharted relic. I brushed the strap away from the lens and lifted the camera body to my face, peering through the eyehole and watching as she flopped backward on the bed, tugging the bedsheet up her chest. She made a silly face that pulled a laugh out of me.

“Take it,” she ordered playfully.

“You’re moving too much.”

“Those are the best ones.”

I centered the frame as she tickled my thigh with her toes and I flinched. She collapsed backward with a laugh, her cheeks still flushed, hair askew.

It was beautiful, this moment. Our ugly reality fell away as I snapped the picture, just as her teeth flashed white, her eyes closed, and her hair blanketed my pillow in streams of honey.

I couldn’t draw out the tenderness any longer. It would consume me. Discarding the camera on the mattress, I sighed, the beauty fading to black. “Breakfast?” I hedged, crawling off the bed.

“Sure.” Her smile slowly buckled in my periphery as I reached for the lukewarm coffee.

I handed her the russet-colored mug and watched as she took a small sip. The smile returned, half as bright as it once was.

“You already know how I like my coffee.”

Scratching my hair, I offered a dismissive shrug. “I’ve seen you make it at the house.”

Dark roast, a splash of milk, and a teaspoon of honey.

It didn’t mean anything.

Knowing how she liked her coffee, her favorite songs, her deepest fears and dreams, the way her breath hitched on my name whenever my tongue was between her legs, and her assortment of smiles dependent on her mood, only meant that I was observant.

Halley scooted off the bed and made her way to the bathroom to clean up, meeting me in the kitchen a few minutes later as I pulled a few boxes of cereal out of a cabinet.

I glanced at her wearing only my T-shirt, my jaw tightening as my eyes rolled down her bare legs. I cleared my throat and turned back to the cabinets. “Cereal good?”

“Yep. Unless you want me to cook something.”

“We can keep it simple.”

Watching her cook magic in my kitchen while wearing nothing but my T-shirt wasn’t going to do my sanity any favors.

Halley hopped up behind me on the small island top and swung her legs back and forth, her hair falling in chaotic waves over her shoulders. She flipped on the radio and a pop song filled the kitchen. I tried to ignore the way her lips moved as she sang along to the song, only partly in key, and snagged two bowls and spoons from the cupboard before grabbing the milk.

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