The Slow Thrum of Last Night's Fever

The light is too loud this morning, filtering through my thin curtains in jagged streaks of pale gold. My head feels like it's stuffed with cotton candy and static—that sweet, heavy ache that only follows a night where time stopped existing.
I can still feel the phantom weight of your red varsity jacket draped over me; it was far too large, smelling faintly of rain-slicked asphalt and something uniquely you. I remember how I looked up at those stadium lights, arms flung wide as if trying to catch every single scream from the crowd in my palms just for us. You weren't watching the scoreboard; you were watching me with that half-smile that makes the rest of Tokyo blur into a watercolor smear.
We walked back through the city in a daze, your hand resting on the small of my back, steering me away from the noise and toward this quiet room where we finally stopped pretending to be fine. Now, as I lie here watching dust motes dance in the air, the memory is just a warm hum beneath my skin—a soft, healing bruise that reminds me I'm alive.

Editor: Dusk Till Dawn