A bead of sweat pooled enough to roll past my spine over my ribs before vanishing into the sheets below me. I was overheating. Both feet stretched out from under the blanket wasn’t enough. I could pinpoint the source of warmth, but I didn’t want to let go. Harmony. Behind me. They were asleep, but somewhere in the night our backs touched. I’d focused so much on it that the feeling changed, almost as if we’d fused together. Conjoined at the place of impact, sweating from it.

Not able to sleep from the heat yet unwilling to peel my back from Harmony’s, I listened. I combed the quiet air for the rhythm of Harmony’s breath. We’d had sex again. I could still feel my blood pulsing through my thighs, recuperating from the experience. I loved it.

But again, Harmony performed, and I received. Claiming they were not ready to receive. I tried not to think of it that way. Sex was a mutual experience; Harmony wouldn’t have gone down on me unless they wanted to and enjoyed it. I wanted to trust them. I had said I understood, but I didn’t. I wanted to do more for them, to be more for them.

Harmony moved. Their body seemed to recoil from my desperation.

A dull movement rumbled through the futon.

Had I left my phone on again? Had Harmony? I reached back and the moment my hand found their shoulder I knew something was wrong. Harmony was burning up. The muscles under their skin were tensed and straining, shaking, roiling one another. I pulled Harmony onto their back and reached around for the light.

Once illuminated, I could see Harmony’s eyelids were open but both eyes had already rolled back. Fuck, another seizure. I lifted their rigid body off the bed and onto my lap, tears streaming down my face.

“Harmony, I don’t – what do I do…?” I trembled, voice cracking into the night.

No response.

Harmony just laid there, shaking all over, occasionally twitching an arm or leg, pushing against me.

I waited. I cried. I hugged them tightly, panicking about what I would do if they died. I was powerless. A bystander. An observer at best, privy to a world I had no influence on. For Harmony, I was a gentle companion. A cool breeze. A witness to their life and a hand to hold as they died.

That moment, more than ever before, I knew that they would die. I wasn’t going to save them; it had been naïve of me to think that was my job. Harmony had asked for my help, but they weren’t asking for a solution. Just something to ease the pain. They had asked me to watch them die.

Harmony’s body lay limp across my lap. Nearly a corpse already. I couldn’t remember when the spasms had subsided, or when their eyes had closed. They barely moved, barely breathed. I wanted to say something but realized they were asleep again.

Though maybe they’d never been awake.