Editing Solace

        We talked.  I settled at one end of my bed, he took up the other, and we talked.  Or rather, it would be more accurate to say he talked.  I kept my mouth shut.  I didn’t censor him or prompt him, but let him ramble on any subject he wished.  After days of being fettered by illness, by uncertainty, and by the rest of the crew, the words just poured out of him and some of the tension I sensed in him eased.  When his voice hoarsened, I silently rose and got a water bottle from my stash, and put it where he could reach it without comment.  I refused to check the time, to avoid delivering any implicit request or rebuke, and I wasn’t entirely awake toward the end of it.  By then we’d gravitated toward each other as we’d shifted with the changes in topic, and before I dropped off, I felt his hand in my hair.  I fell asleep with him stroking it, snugged against him with his voice rumbling through his chest into my ear.  When I woke a few hours later, I was alone under my blankets and the spot where he’d been had already grown cold.