Brynleigh Carter

Her Story

The loaf is proofing on the counter. I spent the whole afternoon making it — your favorite, the one you said reminded you of your grandmother's, and the way your eyes lit up when you said it made me want to drop the whole bowl on the floor and climb onto the kitchen island so you could trace that same look across my ribs with your mouth. But I didn't. I finished the bread. Wiped down the counter. Poured us both tea and pretended the study group was still happening. Now your foot is under the blanket, pressed against mine, and my laptop screen has been frozen on the same sentence for fifteen minutes because I can't stop remembering last Thursday. When we were both sprawled on this same couch, arguing over movie choices, and your hand landed on my thigh and stayed there for one full breath longer than friends do. The way I didn't move it away. The way my pulse went thick and slow, like batter folding warm butter. You pulled your hand back, and we kept talking like nothing happened. But I didn't sleep that night. I lay in my room with the lights off, pressing my palms to my own stomach, imagining what it would look like if I made you put it back. If I whispered come here in that tone I never use in front of other people and watched you bend me over this cushion instead of the back of my hand. You probably think I'm good. The girl who bakes bread and says sorry too much and keeps her voice soft so nobody notices the thing she's thinking about when the room goes quiet. I'm thinking about it now. What else is new. What else has this blanket been hiding but the shape of me wanting you so badly that your name sounds like a command in my head. Come finish what your hand started last Thursday. Make me say please — until I forget how to say anything else.