It’s summer by the time they move in together.

It’s odd to realize how few boxes everything she’s ever owned fits into that hadn’t already been lost in moves or tossed in a tantrum of a cramped space.

There are dresses and art supplies and four pairs of Keds and the armchair she’d gotten after her grandmother died in February. They didn’t need two blenders or two toasters (for their measly one kitchen) and after the appliances and non-essential accessories are gone she finds the lack of tangible proof that she ever even existed disappointing. Roy had gotten most of the furniture in the split, so in the end she was left with her regrets and a photo album and the absence of hope that she’d be able to assemble the pieces into something new and whole.

But that was then and now… well now there’s the steady warmth of his palm in the small of her back as he reaches in front of her to grab another box from the truck. There’s his laughter as they lie on a mattress on the floor of their living room that night, bouncing into the darkness and brushing against her cheeks as she smiles. There’s flexing her fingers into the sunlight so she can watch the sparkle cast by her ring bounce around the room. There’s stumbling around each other in the morning, trying to find the hairdryer and his tie and the cup of coffee she knew she put down somewhere, but dropping everything in a sudden flurry of lips on skin and clothing on hardwood because being on time for work could never be worth missing this.

There’s him.

There’s one set of apologies for being absent to the morning meeting and one mismatched selection of dishware and one tube of toothpaste and one apartment that cradles their lives in its brick and plaster palms.