What Forever Needs

ELRETH

She wasn't sure when he'd actually returned, but she woke when he was leaning against the sleeping platform and removing his clothes.

She ached to touch him, to pull him close, to beg him not to reject her. She prayed once he got in that he would scoot across to spoon her as he'd done the night before when he'd never not touched her in some way.

But he barely slid between the furs, then stopped moving.

The space between them in the bed felt like a yawning chasm to Elreth, as if the entire sky had just opened between them and even if she wanted to, she couldn't cross it. 

What was happening to them? How was this possible so swiftly? 

Was this their fate? To love each other, but be unable to see things clearly together. To constantly conflict?

She'd assumed that loving him was enough. That the squabbling and poking they'd always done would fade with their desire for each other.