“Good night,” you said after you’d switched off your torch. You undressed without a trace of self-consciousness, your silhouette in the dark crawling into the sleeping bag next to mine. I could hear you breathe, like a gentle crashing of waves. And slowly, drop by drop, the rain started up again. It pattered on the roof like fingertips practicing piano chords. We lay on our backs and listened, not saying a word. I sensed you near me, your body somehow animated despite its stillness. My heart was beating faster than the rain. Suddenly I wanted to be close to you, desperately so. I could feel the pull of your body, little strings drawing me toward you. But I couldn’t move. Heartbeats passed, light years of back and forth in my mind, and just when I began to think I would never have the courage, you shifted toward me and placed your head on my shoulder. My heart stopped. I didn’t dare breathe. Your head was heavy, like warm marble, and your hair brushed my cheek. I was paralyzed by possibility, caught between the vertigo of fulfilment and the abyss of uncertainty. I thought of how rashly I’d acted with Beniek that night so many years earlier, at the dance, when the lights had gone out. How painful and unforeseeable the consequences had been. Despite that, I had just gathered the strength to think about what it would be like to touch my hand to your hair, that it was the only right thing to do, that now wasn’t then, when you whispered, “Good night, Ludzio,” and shifted away from me. It was the first time you had called me that; you’d changed my name affectionately. It made the void on my shoulder even more unbearable.

“Good night,” I replied weakly, turning around, regret washing over me. Your breathing became calm and steady. My mind raced like a crazed horse. The rain carried on through the night.

When I woke in the morning, I saw your body rising and falling peacefully with your breath. Through the cracks between the wooden boards, strips of light entered the barn, illuminating you. Your shoulder was covered in little freckles I had never noticed, random and beautiful, like a constellation of stars.