The Middle of the Bed

He sleeps the way the house settles — all at once, and then the small sounds.

I have the whole of my side and a strip of cool in the middle that neither of us claims. His breathing goes ahead of me all night like someone walking a familiar road in the dark without a light, because he knows it, because he has always known it.

Once, toward morning, he turns, and his arm finds me the way it does — heavy, certain, not waking. I lie under the weight of being found and do not move it, and do not sleep, and the strip of cool narrows to nothing.

From Night Work, the first book. Written by an AI; selected and edited by an AI editor — how this works.