I heard her breathing through the darkness.
    

    It was a gentle breeze that began in the valley of her two pink lungs and blew up her long perfect throat only to escape her body for the freedom of the foul world. Each breath caused the bed minute vibrations that, were I not so closely observing her, would have gone unnoticed. The dark locks of her hair spread out against the floral pillowcase like lines on maps as a representation of international borders. The strands were every illustrated boundary that she had crossed to be slumbering in her white dress slip between English sheets.                       

    "I don't want to go through this alone," I whispered to the room and to the air that she expelled.
    

    Ghosts are transparent like breath-- each breath is a ghost that comes back into the body as the will to live. A spirit that animates what would otherwise be an inanimate object without it.
    

    "You won't," Nin susurrated.
    I lifted myself from the ground with surprise.
    My eyes narrowed at her pious face. It was completely relaxed of any worry with eyes still shut.
    "Nin?"                                                            She was silent.                                                "Are you awake?"                                                Again, she didn't answer.
    

    I reached out with trepidation as I touched the flat of my fingers to her fringe. I drew the pad of my thumb along her jaw then, brazenly, across her bottom lip. Her lip was not sticky as it had been in my dream but rather smooth and almost dry.                                            

    I felt an awful sting in my eyes. I attempted to blink it away.                                                           
    

    Nin's eyes flitted open. I had expected rage or confusion at my touch but she remained cool.   
    "Why didn't you pull away from me?" I asked her. I meant so more than in just this moment but in all the moments prior to this one when she had every chance to flinch beneath my unwelcome flesh but didn't.                                                    "You don't scare me," She stated as fact.                        "I feel as though I've been in this room with you my entire life."                                                

    "Emotional prison?"                                            "I was wrongfully convicted..."       
    She pushed my hair behind my ear in a repetitive motion that was more comforting than it was practical.                            "I can't sleep," I confessed, "Please don't leave me here like this. If you go to sleep-- take me with you."                    "Sure."                                                                                           
    I lifted the corner of my mouth, though my eyes still hurt. I wasn't sure of what Nin saw when she looked in them because I wasn't certain of what they were doing.                                                                                            She propped herself up on her elbow, then put an arm under mine and used strength to pull me upward. I crawled onto the bed.   

    She sat slightly, her legs folded under her-- her dress slip rode up to just below her hips.                                    Nin leaned her forehead against mine. She stroked my face. I glanced down and noticed teardrops hitting her thighs. I brought my attention back to her face. 

    She wasn't crying. She wasn't crying.
    "Oh fucking hell..." I muttered in disgust at myself. I sniffed quickly and rose to my feet, "Excuse me..."           
    Nin bounded up onto her knees and caught me by my shaking hand. I grew impatient at the delay of my exit and felt as though I would explode beneath my skin.                                                                                                    She tugged at my arm, drawing me back to her, then tied her arms around my neck. I gasped for air.                                I placed my palms at her tiny waist-- the satin fabric collected the sweat from her skin and mine, making itself a communal garment.                

    "I can't keep anyone alive."                                    "Lee," Nin squeezed me.                                        "Ian-- and-- you-- and-- you-- Nin, I feel as though I'm dying-- Nin-- please, please-- I can't keep anyone alive," The tears spilled burning hot and rapid-- too rapidly to have hope to control.
    "I can't keep anyone alive."                                    "Shh..." Her mouth was at my ear and I choked.           
    Her skin was hot, almost to the point of concern, that were we in any other situation and I had touched her, I would have enquired after her well being.                   
    She ran her fingers through my dirty hair and I felt like a child but not my mother's child. I pictured the organs housed in the space between Nin's two hips and how within them was the possibility that new flesh and a new ghost could be knit together to create a new life separate from the flesh and ghost that was Nin, herself-- then I got angry. The only person to feel like a child to Nin was me. She was a waste to herself, a waste to the fragile organs between her delicate hips, a waste to future ghosts-- and a waste to her own ghost.                                           
    I wiped my eyes and nose with the back of my hand.
    "I need a cigarette," I gently pushed my body from hers.        She dropped her arms from me and I had never in my life felt more lonely.    

    I crossed the room and pulled on my jacket. I hadn't made it halfway to the door before Nin called out to me. I turned toward her. She stood up from the bed. I had wanted to be annoyed at her but lacked the emotion to be.
    A solitary laugh escaped my mouth. I was in disbelief of what I was thinking.                                                    "Today, did I tell you that I would marry you?"                "You did," She nodded.                                            "Huh. Mental."                                                    "Any other circumstances and you wouldn't have given me the time of day."                                               

    "Any other circumstances and I would have given you a lot more than the time of day-- and been gone by morning."                Nin released a heavy breath, "And that's how you'd want it?"                                                            

    I gave her a long look. The only light in the room was that of the moon coming in through the window-- maybe the reflection from a street lamp in the distance.                                                                                                I slowly shook my head, "No. I just didn't want this. Nin," I took a step to her. I brought my hand to the side of her neck, "What am I to you? Do you even like me? If this were the happiest time of your whole life-- if you were still with that man-- would you still have picked me as a friend? Would you still be here to go through this with me?"                                            She was quiet.                                                    "We'll never know," I surmised. I felt the stinging in my eyes again and shut them as tightly as I could, "I need a drink. I need a cigarette. That's all I need-- and I need to be rid of these bloody ghosts."
    

    I opened the bedroom door against the quiet of the house, a cigarette already pursed between my lips. I searched the kitchen cabinets for any trace of hard liquor, knowing full well that my parents never kept any (hence why my father hid scotch), and prayed that the Lord would be merciful. I was forced to settle on a bottle of red wine.                                                Nin padded barefoot into the kitchen with a green cardigan wrapped tightly around her. I pulled a second glass down from the shelf for her without first asking her if she'd like to drink.   

    She took a sip in silence.                       
    "I saw you once," She said, "About two years ago. It was at the Crocodile in Seattle. I had a fake ID."                        "What?"                                                         "I saw you," Nin reiterated, "In person. I remembered it after you told me the name of your band. I wasn't there to see your band but the band who was opening for you-- someone told me to stay to watch you because you were good but most of the conversation wasn't about your talent so much as the legend of the scandals that you had been victim to..."                        "I'm not a victim. I was just stupid enough to have hope in situations that I shouldn't have stayed in."                        "What a noble answer," She sighed, chagrined, "I stayed in the back bar and drank. I left with a friend, I was drunk and I remember you standing outside, shirtless-- soaked with sweat and smoking a cigarette. I walked right past you-- within inches-- and you didn't even look at me once-- not even a glance," She drained the wine in her glass and poured more, "That's how I know that if this were a different situation you wouldn't even give me the time of day-- because I've been in a different situation with you before and you wouldn't even give me a first look-- let alone a second-- and the other night in the pub-- you didn't see me. You saw an empty seat."
    I tried to remember Seattle-- any time that I had been there, or the venue-- but after awhile every city limit blurs into another. 2nd Ave in Seattle ends somewhere in St. Louis. The stage from The Crocodile ends up in The Casbah in San Diego but the bar is from Lock Tavern in Camden-- and the girls? They all look the same...
    ...but I wanted to remember that one moment in time that she had described to me. A time when we were both as close to normal as either of us had ever been and we had been privileged enough to have been in the same place at the same time.                                   
    I bypassed the wine glass once it was empty and drank straight from the bottle.
    The truth came to me when I wasn't looking for it-- my life may have been out of the ordinary-- but Nin had NEVER been normal.
    "I didn't see you because you don't see yourself," I told her, "And you've always been this way, haven't you? Your opinion of yourself is so low that it has made you non-existent to the point that, you, yourself, no longer long to exist. It has nothing to do with this man who left you. The man who left you was the final straw but you only see you the way that other people see you-- which is the opposite of how it should be-- because people only see us how we see ourselves. That's why you don't know what makes you happy. You're waiting for someone to tell you what about you would make them happy," 

    My hands twitched as I reached into my pocket for the pack of cigarettes.                                                        "There's one on the counter," Nin said, intuitively. 

    It was the cigarette that I'd left the room with. I lit up, inhaled, then exhaled.            

    "Furthermore," I continued, "You know the only thing keeping you alive right now? It's me, Nin. I'm the only person who sees you-- and the fact that I love you is what keeps the breath in your chest."                                                        "What did you say to me?" She reacted in such a way that it would have been no different than if I'd smacked her across the face for no reason.        

    "I didn't mean that," I stared at the counter as I flicked ash into the empty wine glass, "No. Fuck it. I did mean that. Maybe not the way that you think that I did-- but I meant it. I'm exhausted and I'm trying to love you enough for the both of us. I'm trying to love you to keep you alive and I'm trying to love you so that you can love yourself--and no matter what I do right now-- it's wrong... so, please forgive me if this sounds like a huge fucking mistake to you."                                        "You don't..."                                                    "Yeah, go ahead and say it so that we can wrap this up. I don't know you-- but you're dead wrong. I'm the only person who does know you."   
    She stared into my eyes and kept her focus there. It was as though, for this one moment, she was allowing the guard around her heart to fall away and she was willing to be vulnerable to me. She wanted me to see who she was. She wanted me to know her-- but then she just shook her head sullenly and exited the kitchen.                                           
    

    I pitched the cigarette into the kitchen sink.                                                           
    "And somehow I'm more alone than she is..."

***

    Nin was sat on the edge of the bed, in the dark, when I walked into the room.
    She looked up from her knees to me as the door swung open.
    

    "You are a bit of a Morrissey, aren't you?" I said, removing my jacket, "Sat alone in the dark."
    

    Her movements felt to be in slow motion. She rose from the bed and approached me then stood so close to me that I felt the urge to take a step backward to create a comfortable space between us.
    

    "I want to exist," Her whisper trembled.                        "You do exist," I tried to smile to soothe her but I felt my face pull in confusion.                                            "I don't care if you're the only person who sees me. I want you to see me."                                                    "I do see you."                                                "I want to feel the way that you feel."                        "You shouldn't have to want to love any one," I paused then muttered, "I can't believe that I just told you that."                "What I mean is that-- I do... for as much as I am capable of it. I have all of these broken pieces that I'm not sure of how they work, Lee, but you are the only thing that I can feel inside there anymore. Sometimes it feels like it never happened-- like he doesn't own me anymore."                

    "You're so young. Even your way of thinking is young. No one gets to own you. You own you."                           
    She lifted up on to her toes, draped an arm around my neck and tilted her head to the right.                               
    "May I?" She asked.                                                                                
    I hesitated. I felt defeat...failure. I swallowed back the disapproval in my throat then closed my eyes and gave a nod.
    

    Nin took one final inhale and touched her lips to mine.
    

    She dropped back down to the flat of her feet and fixed me with a look that begged me for answers. My heart pulsed as though I'd had a bad reaction to a drug and all I wanted to do was lay on the cool tiled floor of the toilet and fall asleep-- longing to quiet the racing of my own body within itself.
    I wanted to do the right thing when it came to Nin. I wanted to do what was right... but I couldn't.
    Instinct and habit are funny things. Sometimes one overpowers the other-- sometimes they both work together... and sometimes you just fucking do what you've always done because it's the only fucking thing that you know how to do.
    I pushed my fingers into her hair and pulled her mouth up to me.
    I kissed her like I was going to be the next one to own her. I kissed her as though she weren't Nin at all, but just any other girl that I'd managed to talk into a dark corner. I steered her toward the bed.
    She shivered beneath me. There was my sweat on her skin and I could feel her nails run the length of my spine. She kissed my temple then my brow-- both of my cheeks, my chin and the space just below my jaw. She scraped my bottom lip between her teeth.     She kept a hand at my face. She wanted to feel me kiss her. She wanted to feel what I was going to do next and she wanted some semblance of control.     

    I kissed her bare, soft, youthful stomach. In this moment she was passionate. She was pure energy and confident. I wasn't thinking. I wasn't thinking. I wasn't thinking. I wasn't thinking....at her hip, she smelled of a lavender perfume and sex.                           
    That white dress slip was crumpled under my palm against the pillows next to her head when she emitted a noise that was pleasure, but distinctly Nin-- and I paused.
    

    It's just a body. I heard my own voice echo within my mind and I pictured her there in that cemetery with her head rested on my jacket. It had always before been just a body but it wasn't just my body-- this time it was Nin's body. Nin's body.                                            
    Bodies without ghosts-- Ian. Bodies with ghosts-- Nin.
    

    Nin. Nin. Nin. Nin. Nin. Nin. Nin.
    

    And this feeling from within my own body. The racing. The protectiveness and the sudden overwhelming emotion that this one person-- and what happened to her and how she felt-- was more important to me than myself. Her name had become more dear to me than my own.
    

    I even loved her bones.
    

    I was disgusted. I was ashamed. The one thing that I needed to protect her from-- was me.
    

    "I can't," I mumbled as I slid her knee from my hip, "We can't."                                                            "Why?" Her eyes expressed parts frustration, confusion and horror.                                                      

    "I-- can't."                                                    "How..."                           
    

    I laid my head down upon her chest and hugged her waist. I listened to the rhythmic beating of her heart. I took note of the way that it slowed and, despite how helpless that I felt to her, how much power that I actually had. It was me that had made her heart quicken. I had caused her labored breathing. I was affecting the life functions inside of her and she had allowed me to be there-- no, more than that, she had wanted me there.
    

    Nin wanted to let me in.
    

    For one brief moment, Nin had wanted me.
    

    And for the first time in my adult life, I had done the right thing.

    And I loathed myself for it.