I lean in close and breathe deep. His skin is a mixture of clean and tobacco. Two smells that don’t normally go together but on him it’s possible and intoxicating all at once. His fingers intertwine with mine and they feel like they fit. I smile for the first time without prompting in months. Happiness fills every inch of me as he wraps his arm around my waist, pulling me closer. Nights like these are short lived and rare I’ve come to realize since that final night in September and that makes me appreciate this moment in a greater way.

I take a sip of my drink, sweet and bitter, it reminds me of a tea my mother used to make me late at night when I was a young girl. Her teas never held the same type of happiness this particular drink is providing me with now. The liquid relaxes the muscles that have been far too tight for too long in my face and body so I lean into his warm, hard chest and begin to listen for his heartbeat pounding through. It’s a similar rhythm to one I heard months ago and the sound transports my mind back to that chilly, autumn night that I had laid on a different, colder body. I remember my tears were caught in a pool surrounding where the sound was pulsating from and the steady thump that I heard seemed to play a melancholy song to the pain I was feeling. This was it, this was the last time. From here we would part ways and I would never hear that lonely song again. I could feel the vibrations as he pushed my hair aside and spoke words I couldn’t fully hear, his heart was too loud, demanding my attention, blocking out all the final words I didn’t want to hear anyway. I just wanted to stay laying there, listening for just a bit longer. I felt comfort in knowing that the only thing keeping him alive, was playing a symphony for only me in the dark of the room.

I am brought back to the brightly lit and colored room as the man who keeps a tight grip on me leans down and kisses the top of my head. I smile and continue to press against him, listening carefully to the hear the song that his heart is now playing for me. It’s loud and quick with an urgency, as though it’s trying to break free from it’s bony cage and join mine. The tempo brings excitement and hope to my own song performing deep inside my core. There’s a band playing so loudly around us that the walls shake but his song is the only one I hear. So I stay leaned against him, listening, and I’m hit with the sudden realization that while another song ended for me in that quiet hotel room on that bitter night there was always an opportunity for another, and the girl I was from before with dark circles and a tear stained face breathes a sigh of contentment.

Every heartbeat plays a song for the ones we love, we just have to listen for it.