Not everything is a cog in the gears of the cosmos.

I lay in his bed sometime in the middle of those hours that are neither night nor morning, my thumbs tracing slow circles in the muscles of his shoulders. I reflect on the fact that I really do love physical contact, and that I feel safer here, curled up against his back, than I've felt in months, since I last did this with someone entirely different.

It's strange, listening to the rhythm of our breathing, when I realize that I have no idea what he means to me. I don't know what to call him if I talk about him to anyone else. Is he a friend? A boyfriend? A fuck buddy? And then I ask myself if it matters, if choosing what to call him would change anything about how comfortable I feel right now.

And I surprise myself with an immediate no.

As if he has heard me thinking, he asks softly, “Why me?” And for a moment, I'm unsure how to answer, unsure of what he expects—and that is strange, because the last time I found myself in someone's bed, I could feel every emotion as it passed though him. With this boy, in the here-and-now, I can barely tell what he's feeling, let alone come anywhere close to reading his mind.

“Because you're stable,” I tell him after a second, writing disjointed letters in Japanese along his spine. “Because you can handle what people throw at you, but that isn't all you are. You're deeper than that.” But behind my words, there are dozens that I don't speak. Why you? Because you saw me, and you touched me. Because you focused on me, and sent me hurling into the stratosphere without needing to ask for permission. Because I don't love you. Because I don't have to love you. Because you don't love me, either. Because neither of us want that, or need it. Because, boy. Just because.

“I could ask you the same thing,” I say. “Why am I here?” Here, in your bed. Here, in your arms. Here, in your life, for now.

“Because you chose to be,” he says simply, and it is the best answer he could have given, because it rings out in the darkness with a tone of pure truth. I am here, sleeping in his bed, because I want to be, and that's all he needs from me—to choose this, for now.

We've combined in a tangle of teeth and tongue and touch because we both wanted to—not because of anything large and looming and hard to understand. I don't feel driven to be here, as if it is somehow out of my control. I don't see fate's line leading me from this point to the next. This is what it is, two human beings coming together because they want to. Because it feels good.

And I realize, as I drift off to sleep in the darkness of his bedroom, that sometimes, that's all you need. To feel good with someone else.

Sometimes, that's important enough.