He woke up to the sound of pained I'm sorry's and cold, thrashing limbs hitting his chest. Her forehead was covered with little droplets of sweat that reminded him of how dew hangs off blades of grass.

He shook her awake, pulling her out of her nightmare and away from whatever was invading her dreams. She woke up and kept apologizing and he kissed her sweaty, dew dropped face and reminded her that she was okay and she was home. Her dreams weren't real, but oh god, he was. He was mumbling things onto her cheek and his hair was tickling her nose and her ear and he smelled like nicotine, mixed with mint leaf tea and he was everything.

He didn't ask what her nightmare was about and she was grateful. She didn't want to have to explain that she was running away from home for unclear reasons. He was chasing her and she was apologizing, but she wouldn't stop running because he didn't deserve her hurricane of thoughts and her cold arms and her shaking hands.

He shushed her and rubbed her arm and pressed the side of her head into his chest. He was rocking and she felt crazy. She had had such a good day and she had felt color in her cheeks, but it disappeared quicker than it had come about and she was overwhelmingly sad again.

"I'm not normal," she showered and the words scratched her throat like they were little pieces of metal.

He giggled because he knew that she wasn't normal, she never had been and never would be. He wasn't normal either. Normal people would stay in one place for their entire lives and normal people leave the house more then once every week or so and normal people share their secrets and talents with their friends or someone else they trust and they were so far from being normal. He was convinced that they would bleed purple instead of red and that their eyes held constellations and both of them were mysteries and that "like everybody else," wasn't what they were meant to be.

He told her this and he could hear her make a sound that was stuck between a hum and a sob. He rocked back and forth to lull her back to sleep but she stopped him because that made her feel crazier and needier than normal. She didn't want to admit that she needed him to sleep well, even though she knew it was true.

She asked him to sing to her because his warm breath and silky voice made her feel like she was a real person and not just this sad brain living in a tired body. He smiled and quietly sang an old Elvis song that he knew she loved and it hurt a bit, those damn cigarettes, but he continued anyways because he would do anything to make he past days happen much more often.

She was breathing shallow breaths in his arms within five repetitions of Love Me Tender and he was left to stare at her face and study her and imagine her face in every beautiful place possible, a cute bakery with black and white tiled floors and the aroma of freshly baked muffins surrounding them or climbing a staircase that led to a library that was filled with books that had yellowed pages and withering spines or sitting in the backseat of a car that barely ran with old blankets that smelled like nicotine draped around her shoulders.

They weren't normal and they weren't necessarily happy, but they were so beautiful together that he didn't mind and she was trying not to.