i picked her up a little before five in the morning. she was standing outside, hair curled because she hadn't taken the time to straighten it, looking up in the early sky.

the sun hadnt risen yet.

jenny is beautiful.

we went out to eat and she ate some of my food, checked her watch, looked outside to see if the sun had risen yet.

i watch her, sometimes, just to see how she moves, how her face changes and grins, how her eyes squint when she laughs.

she would never call herself beautiful. but she is.

i sit behind her, sometimes, watching her back. her shoulders curve just so and she is petite.

i've never been with a girl who could be called petite.

i've never been with a girl smaller than me.

watching her shoulders, seeing that slight dip between shoulderblades, hearing her singing softly beside me in the car as we drive around, it makes me wish that just once both of us believed in having a purely casual, purely physical relationship.

i could never do it. she deserves more than that, deserves more than to be with someone who is thinking of another girl all of the time, deserves more than to just be purely physical.

i could never do it because, while i was holding her, while i was marvelling at the smallness of her against my hands, how she fills my palms, how much she is like a bird, i would be thinking of emily.

emily who is muscle and curves and length of torso. emily who stands taller than i do. emily whose shoulder blades don't jut and cut but slope like a carpenter had taken sandpaper and smoothed it all out.

jenny and i saw the sun rise to our left as i drove down the main road in this town. we took turns and curves and went past houses and talked and found ourselves in a store buying presents for friends at 630 in the morning.

i have a soft spot for jenny, more so than any of my other friends. it might be because we've shared similar heart aches and i can't see how anyone could do that to her, do that to someone so fragile and beautiful and kind and in turn she shows me how alike we are and it makes me wonder how someone could have done that to me.