When he saw her for the first time, he sidled up behind her to kiss her neck, softly holding her vertebrae between his lips, spreading warmth up her spine to the crown of her skull, dimming the light before her eyes, causing the axis right above her ears to stab with pain.

. . .

He would awake around 1pm, preferring a lie-in while she would nurse her responsibilities, getting her work in before his dawn arrived. Upon opening his eyes, he would dress and then twist her arm right up to her shoulder blades and then shove her to her knees: nothing else to be done that day.

. . .

Lying in bed, overwhelmed by her reaction to his touch, he would creep in to press his body into the shape of hers, asserting all his weight and power into every crevice, every follicle of her being. He would gently peel away the cold compress on her forehead to lavish her temples with barbed kisses.

. . .

He would follow her around in his suave black suit and skinny tie, snapping at her heels as she went from class to class, building to building, hour to hour. He would stretch one long, pale finger to poke her in the back of the neck when he was out of her sight, to remind her. A laugh, a thought, a question: none were to exist without his glower.

. . .

They never had a honeymoon stage: they never grasped for each other’s hands in the dark of a movie theatre or wondered about how a first kiss might be. Instead, he preferred to jump right into the routine, the paralysis, the violence of a long-term relationship. He always forgot to say, “I love you.”

. . .

Anything else was a third wheel. She would try to sneak away, when he had his back turned or when he had his eyes on someone else, but his long strides could match her short, determined ones in a minute or two. They were inextricable lovers, together for habit and his pleasure: his duty, his obligation, his employment, his fulfillment, his success.

. . .

He would sit besides her in restaurants, back straight, right leg crossed over left, fingers woven in his lap. His glance was penetrating but unassuming, curious and a little bemused, always looking at her. He would enter a space with hair slicked and eyes narrowed, leading her in with a forefinger and thumb clasped around her wrist and shoving her into a chair to have a date or a chat or a drink with someone she was less committed to.

. . .

He loved the grocery store: the fluorescents and the dim soundtrack and squeak of cart wheels and varying temperatures were his stomping ground. She would push her cart, eyelids limp with pain, while he galloped in the aisles, yelling his existence louder and louder in her direction. His shoes made a throbbing noise on the linoleum and echoed in her temples.

. . .

Going to the doctor’s office, the neurologist, the psychologist, the orthodontist, the ophthalmologist, he would strut in, dressed to the nines in his suave black suit and skinny tie, and then hide in the cabinets, under chairs, in pockets, evading analysis. He would crouch on the examining table, knees bent and arms spread when the doctor would turn his back and shout, “I AM HE!” at the top of his lungs while she would cringe and try to explain his behavior away: “He’s sensitive to caffeine,” “It’s that time of the month.”

. . .

These days, he only comes when called. When her mother asks when she saw him last and she can say, “It’s been weeks,” he feels summoned and crawls right back between her lobes. When she forgets about him, when she becomes all-consumed with better memories and activity, he falls away. He doesn’t get angry or theatrical, biding his time and saving up his potency for when she will remember him, for when he will orchestrate his crippling symphony inside her head, wiggling her hypothalamus and cerebellum in time with her heart beats, punctuated with sharp stabs to the axis right above her ears.

. . .

I am she and he is headaches, and so we are she.