That the word even existed. We were lying in bed. Last Sunday we had gotten into a brief argument following a small nudge of her nose at my neck, her arm snaking around my side and her heavy hand persuading. I had work the next morning. That’s what I had told her, tilting my head to the side, feeling her go limp against me, even her chest absent from my back as she stopped breathing. “What is tomorrow?” She asked me, I could feel the words lying flat on their back, staring blankly up at the ceiling, the same color as the rest of the room - dark. “Monday?” I mumbled in response to her, casually, confused. She knew I began work again on Mondays. It was as routine as any common man’s week could follow suit. She let out a frustrated breath at that. She was aggravated. I could feel the tensions settling between her brows, tightening her shoulder blades down into the bed, her jaw set. I did not have to look at her to know her. “That’s not what I meant, Grey.” she spat out. I racked for what else she possibly could have meant. What was tomorrow? The day of the week? The thirteenth of the month? Was it her mothers birthday? Guilt settled in with a pit of nausea as he was left weightless against the mattress, thinking if there was something that he had forgotten. Too wrapped up in whatever it is he was wrapped up in to remember it was their anniversary, 12:03 pm, and he was three minutes late. But that wasn’t it. Their anniversary wasn’t on a thirteenth, it was on the sixth. Her mothers birthday wasn’t until late Spring. He remembered only because of how Mia would suddenly lurch herself forward, palm slapping the dashboard, “Stop the car!” she’d yell out to him, just so she could pick an arrangement of wild flowers that had just begun to bloom alongside the highway. Daffodils and Meadowsweet, Spiraeas. April. “There isn’t a tomorrow, Grey. Tomorrow doesn’t exist.” her voice, again. Settling my guilt. Settling my nausea. Now I was silent. I knew she would continue. I knew she was angry, irritated that I didn’t understand what she meant, what she was telling me. It was important to her, I knew by the ferocity of such delicate movements I felt her making. Her palms falling to her stomach, her thumbs aggravating one another, her rough swallows, listening to her hair shift like harsh thread against her pillow. “It doesn’t fucking exist!” Her voice grew, and she was sitting up. “What the fuck is tomorrow, Grey? What is tomorrow?” I didn’t know if she wanted an answer. I didn’t know what to answer her. I didn’t know the answer she wanted to hear. “Fuck tomorrow.” Her fingers gripped around the bruise on the edge of my elbow, causing me to wince slightly, but she wanted my attention. She needed me to know. “All there is are these bruises, right here. These ones.” she enforced by tightening her grip. “There’s these bruises, and that Pitbull Lily that the owners never god damn bring in from the escape, just leaving her out there every weekend night so they can get in a quick fuck to make up for their week of priorities. Work at seven am, can’t be late! Fixing her husband his lunch in a paper bag like he’s a fucking child. The bruises, Grey.” I could hear tears welding up in her eyes, her feet padding against the wooden floorboards, the bed elevating with her body missing. I could see her now, a desperate figure in our room, walking to the window and tearing down the orange sheet she had left up. She always liked to defy the impossible. She could tint the sunlight any morning she so desired, all it took was a trip to the general dollar for her to select a new color, drape it there, and sit with her legs curled in, waiting for that first glint of color to paint their bedroom. She balled the sheet up between her hands and tossed it towards him, landing beside his edge of the bed. “Who the fuck needs this. It isn’t morning. The moon is out. It’s there. We’re right here. It’s now. It’s today. It’s only today, Grey. That’s it!” She threw her hands up, exasperated, depleting herself completely, her energy slowly crumbling. I watched her in terror, I watched her and she watched me. Neither of us moved. Just her lips. Barely in control of her breath. “Tomorrow, you could head out and forget your papers on the Meddletown building. You could come back in, kiss me again, grab them from the counter and head out. You could make it through that second light on Park that we have never once reached without a red light glaring back at us. You could make it. And a bus driver from the tram could have made one wrong turn, one wrong turn that left him a few minutes behind on the schedule to Edens. You know? Where we go for coffee? Where we met?” Tears were coming more frequently now, burning against her cheeks, her knees shaking. “That’s all it takes Grey!” Her voice rose. “That’s all it takes! That bus made the wrong turn, and you forgot your papers, and you couldn’t leave without two kisses because each lip deserves one, and it took twenty two more steps that necessary, and that bus took two minutes longer than necessary,” My arms were around her. She jumped, startled as if she hadn’t even realized I’d left the bed, though she was watching me all the while. “You wouldn’t even see it coming! You wouldn’t even know!” she cried, and I held her. “You would be dead, just like that, instantly that would be it you would be gone, and I’d be here asleep and fucking comfortable.” Her body slowly began to sink, I only tightened my arms. “I’d have to arrange the dates and invite and see people who don’t know who the fuck you are, Grey. I’d still be here. Paying rent. Trying the key six or seven or ten times before it finally fucking works! Bitching about the leaking shower and to who! To fucking who! To an empty fucking house! Don’t you get it!” She could barely choke a sentence without a stutter interrupting. “This is all I know! This is all I’ll know of you, Grey! This is all that will fucking matter! These bruises” her hands fought to reach every tangible memory in front of her. “The fact that you haven’t shaved in two weeks and the smell of that body wash stuck to your fucking skin, and that god damn bracelet that you should’ve cut off months ago! That’s what I’ll fucking have to remember. That’s it, that’s now, not fucking tomorrow Grey. Please not tomorrow. Please.” I caught her bottom from hitting the floor, pulling her into my lap, pressing her head into my chest and resisting her struggles to get out of my hold, her palms hitting into my chest, my hands restraining them, her works broke into sobs, long jerking cries. She cried, and I held her. And I didn’t say a word. I stared down at my arm, red from her grip, at the bruise. And she was right. Tomorrow didn’t exist. What was tomorrow? How could tomorrow ever be? It couldn’t. And it didn’t. And it never would. It would always be now. The blue hair tie always on her left wrist. The red nail polish left in flakes on her nails. Marks on her skin where she had picked a bite, irritated the skin, the remnants of her rose lipstick blushed on the edges of her lips. And I understood. This was now. This was how I had her, the way she was, in my arms right now. Not tomorrow. Tomorrow didn’t matter. Tomorrow didn’t exist.