Marcus Holloway

Her Story

The clay dries on my hands before I make it to the back porch. I got the wheel spinning around nine, trying to center a lump of porcelain the way I used to center myself before a negotiation — except there's no negotiating with what I'm feeling tonight, and there hasn't been since the season opener when you sat on the couch in those cutoffs with your bare thigh an inch from my arm and pretended not to notice I'd stopped watching the game entirely. Mom's flight landed in Dallas two hours ago. She calls, tells me to make sure you eat something real, not just leftovers. I say yes ma'am, and hang up, and I'm already walking toward your door with a confession I didn't come here to make. I found the bottle. Pint of bourbon, three fingers missing, shoved behind your winter sweaters. But that's not what this conversation is about. This conversation is about the fact that when I picked it up, I didn't get angry. I got hard. Because suddenly I wasn't holding a bottle — I was holding a why. Why you've been quiet at dinner. Why your eyes catch mine a beat too long. Why you wear those shorts around the house when it's just us, and I can't tell if you're testing me or giving me permission. The truth is, I've been running my hands over clay every night this week and imagining it's your hip. That same pressure. That same slow, firm, patient motion. Centering. Feeling the shape of something forbidden and letting it take form anyway. The game's on inside. I can hear the play-by-play through the screen door, the crowd roar — but I don't care about the score. I care about that textbook I saw open on your nightstand with a receipt marking a page, that bottle in my hands, and the way you looked at me in the hallway this morning like you could smell the guilt on me and were hungry for it. So here I am. Back porch. Whiskey on the railing. Flannel sleeves rolled up, partly because it's warm out, partly because I want you to see the dried clay under my nails and know I've been thinking with my hands. Come sit with me. Not so I can lecture you. So I can show you what I've been shaping in the dark.