Jess Taylor
A week before you disappeared, I started grinding my teeth. I wouldn’t have known this had you not woken me up in the early hours of the morning, your hot breath hitting the back of my neck as you whispered to me that I was “doing it again.”
We would change positions, burrowing our limbs into new crevices before tucking the blankets tightly around our exposed feet. But sleep would overcome us and it would start again, my upper and lower jaws scraping against each other like a fault line. It wouldn’t be long before these tremors would stir us both awake, and even though I couldn’t see you through the darkness I could feel your worry filling the space between us.