Her fingers always pinch at the hem of her shirt, tugging it down like it might hide the things she doesn’t like. The way she shifts her weight, one foot to the other, like she’s trying to escape her own reflection.

She’s staring at herself in the mirror, jaw tight, eyes scanning—cataloging every imagined flaw.

I watch from the bed, pulling my shirt over my head, stretching out the stiffness in my shoulders. “You ever seen the aurora borealis?”

She startles, flicking her gaze to me in the mirror. “What?”

I lean back on my elbows, gaze lazy, voice even lazier. “The lights. Up north. Bright enough to make you forget the sky was ever dark.” My fingers drum idly against my thigh. “It’s apparently a solar storm. Something scientific, something explainable. But I think it’s just proof the universe gets lonely.” I tilt my head toward her, studying the way the soft light catches the slope of her cheek. “So it made something beautiful. Just for itself.”

“Jesus. You’re such a poet.”

I hum, half-smirking. “That wasn’t even the poem.”

She raises an eyebrow, but I can see the flicker of curiosity beneath it.

I let my head tip back against the pillow, closing my eyes as the words come, slow and sure, rolling off my tongue like they’ve always been there.

“Every inch of you is an untold myth, a hymn sung softly by the hands of creation. I have known beauty before, in fleeting moments—moonlight on quiet water, the first breath of spring in a frozen city. But you? You are the brushstroke, the unfinished sonnet, the ink-smudged masterpiece. The universe had a moment of weakness when it made you, and I have spent every second since thanking it for its mercy.”

Silence settles between us. I crack an eye open. She’s staring at me through the mirror, expression unreadable.

Then she turns, slow, deliberate. Her eyes are softer now. Softer for me.

“You’re ridiculous,” she murmurs.

I smirk, tilting my head back against the pillows. “That’s all you, baby. Your fault. You make me feel schizophrenic.”