the law of love

The rest of the day mellows out.

Partly it is strategy. The house is finally presentable; another mess would be an insult to the wet vacuum.
Partly it is a different itch.
The coming separation sits in the rooms now—her parents’ keys in an airport somewhere, your own bed across town, lectures, doors that will not stay locked.
Cuddling and lamenting fills that space better than another round on the counter.
You stay close because closeness feels like the only thing that could brace you against the cold.

You try to prepare for the Jura test.

It is still far off. That has never stopped you.
The two of you have always been able to force each other onto a topic earlier than you could force yourselves.
She makes you open the book. You make her stop highlighting entire pages in panic colours.
The “Jura bible”—the fat binder of statutes and scribbled addendums you have been building since first semester—comes down from her shelf and lands on the coffee table like a truce with reality.

Today the learning is decorative.

She sits in your lap because that is where she sits now. The binder opens across both of your knees.
A recent addendum stares up: a paragraph that needs inserting, a margin note that needs rewriting, a case name neither of you can pronounce the same way.
You last four minutes of actual discussion.

“So if we slot the new wording after paragraph—”

She kisses the corner of your mouth.

“After paragraph two,”
you repeat, weaker.

“I heard you.”
She has not heard you. She is melting sideways into your chest, binder sliding, your arm automatically catching it before case law hits the floor.
“Read it again. I like your voice.”

“Sandra, That is not studying.”

“We’re studying how to sit as one”

You try. You really do.
You point at a clause. You make her say it back.
She says it back against your throat and then forgets the second half because your hand has settled on her hip and her body has decided that is more important. Stolen kisses accumulate like unpaid fines.
Every time you land on a sentence that matters she finds your mouth.
Every time she finds your mouth you lose the sentence.

“This is why we used to sit on opposite ends of the couch,” you mutter.

“We were cowards on opposite ends of the couch.”
She shifts in your lap, not grinding, just seeking more contact, more of the engulfing she wanted in the window this morning.
“I waited years to be allowed to do this while you explained delict to me. I’m collecting damages.”

You laugh into her hair and give up on the addendum for a full minute, just holding her, the binder a useless weight on her thighs. The lament creeps in around the edges of the joke.

“I’m going to hate sleeping at mine.”

“I’m going to hate existing in a room without you”
She picks at a sticky tab.
“I’m going to hate pretending I can concentrate in a lecture. I still feel like we’re about to be sent back to the starting screen.”

“We’re not. We’re just… changing maps.”

“Don’t be wise. I’m lamenting.”

You let her lament. You kiss her temple.
You try again with the binder because the test will not care that you are in love. She reads a line out loud, slowly, and you correct a word, and then she turns in your lap to face you more fully and the binder has to be rescued a second time.

“One page,”
you bargain.
“One clean page in the bible and then we can melt.”

“Two kisses per paragraph.”

“That’s not how law works.”

“I know, but i love being difficult”

You take the deal. The page gets done in fits: a sentence, a kiss, a scribbled insert, her nose against yours, a citation copied wrong because her hand is on your jaw.
Little progress. Enough to pretend.

When the page is finally in the binder she closes it like a door.

“That’s our civic duty,” she says. “Now stay. Don’t go to the other cushion. I’m not done melting.”

You stay. The test stays far away. Her weight in your lap is the only statute either of you is willing to obey.