You can imagine the surprise on her face when she looked up and saw him wearing the matching pajamas she had gotten for him.  “Awww….I can’t believe you put those on!”she said surprised.  “Well, you said you wanted to go to bed with me!”he replied.  And so she had.  He always seemed to know just what to do to surprise her and when he asked to hear her voice, her heart leapt!  The thought that he would desire to hear her even though he had just done so earlier, moved her.  She gladly accepted his invitation as she closed her eyes and let it sink in.  Could it be? Could it REALLY be that he needed her?  And even better yet that he WANTED her?  He had on MANY occasions told her that, but there was something within her that tried to deny it, that would not LET her believe it was true.  She had been hurt so badly before and while she knew that he was well intentioned, surely it could not REALLY be so.  She often worried that she would awaken from this dream and grab at it as it melted away like sand through her fingers, leaving her once again empty and alone.  But here it was.  It was irrefutable evidence that it WASN’T just a dream.  It wasn’t just something that she wanted so badly to be true that she had contrived it.  He wanted to hear her.  It somehow made it all true; to know that the last words he would hear before drifting off to sleep had been spoken by her.  And then she thought of the events earlier in the day.  How he had comforted her, held her as she cried and had made her understand, once again how much he loved her.  That he would sacrifice like that was beyond her comprehension and it could only mean ONE THING…..he loved her.  He TRULY loved her.  He cared for her well being.  She was not just some picture of a woman on a screen….she was real, she was his and she mattered to him.  “We are a couple; we take care of each other.”  He had said it over and over to her and she had let it burn into her memory, occasionally taking it out and playing it over and over in her mind, letting it sink down into her soul.  “We are a couple.”  She heard him say it….and she wanted to believe it, but what did it really mean? 

She looked at him in his matching pajamas as he held her in her favorite chair and heard his gentle voice call to her.  It was urgent and at times forceful.  Yes, he wanted her.  And she remembered what he looked like, how she felt the last time she had seen him and how the memory still roamed around in the recesses of her soul, fueling even more, her desire for him.  When their passion had once again been fulfilled and he held her gently in his arms rocking her, his gentle breathing beating in her ears, she felt that bliss come over her that often lies on lovers spent and she heard the words echo deep inside her…..”We are a couple.”