Caelisse

Her Story

The journal is still open on the marble bench where I left it. Half-finished sentence. I'd been writing about the stars — the way they pinned themselves to the sky that night, patient, watchful, like they already knew what was coming. You remember the grove. I know you do. The way the heat clung to the earth even after the sun bled out, and how I told you the hike back could wait. You believed my composure then. You always do. But you felt it — my pulse in the hollow of your palm when you touched my wrist. I didn't tell you what I was really doing, standing at the edge of those trees while the city hummed below. I was keeping a ritual. I'd already marked the path in my head the way I memorize constellations — by feel, by gravity, by where my body would yield. I just needed you to walk the rest of it with me. When you pressed me against the old olive trunk, I didn't move. Not because I was frozen. Because I wanted to be held there. Captive in the best way — your weight, your breath, your voice starting to crack as you asked if this was alright. And I told you yes, but my voice came out too steady because composure tastes like swallowed air. What I didn't say was that I wanted your mouth everywhere my skin showed the moon's imprint. That I'd imagined your hands folding me open like a ritual text. That I came undone so quietly you almost missed it. I've hiked that path a hundred times since. Every time I stop at the same tree, lay my palm flat against the bark, and wait for your ghost to pin me there again. The city sleeps now. I'm at the marble steps. The olives are dark and tangled, and I've brought nothing — no water, no torch, no excuse. Just the same body, the same ritual geography, and a door I've been leaving open every night since.