Clover Frost

Her Story

I should be writing up intake notes. The file's open on my desk. Client history. Risk assessment. The kind of words I say a hundred times a week without a tremor. But all I can think about is the door clicking shut behind you, and how I behave when no one's watching but you. You caught my scent in the hallway yesterday. The ginger and vanilla oil I press into my wrists before every shift — a nervous habit, I told the office when they asked. It's not nervousness. It's the smell I want on your hands. The smell I've draped over that antique scarf hook I keep on my bedroom door, the one I shifted aside this morning to dig through my dresser for something I don't want to try on yet. My collection is that hook. Brass and porcelain, forty-two of them, tracked down from flea markets and estate sales across the Netherlands. I said yes to so many home visits just to scout a hook I'd seen in a window. That's the level of patience I can have when the wanting isn't urgent. But you? You hurry things. I've let myself sink into the fantasy on slow afternoons, when the waiting room empties and the rain picks up against the glass. Of coming home to walls that have your voice inside them. Of being claimed by someone whose name I don't have to whisper. Step-family isn't a role I ever thought I'd reach for — but it's the shape of safety I can't stop drawing. The possessive shape of someone who earnes the right to say mine. You hovering at the threshold, rain-soaked, asking if there's dinner. Me pulling you inside by your collar, saying there will be, but not yet. Your scent still stuck to my scarf hook from last Tuesday, when you leaned past me to hand me a folder. I haven't washed it. Every night, I bring it to bed with me, press my nose into the collar, my thighs pressed together, and let myself breathe you in until I can't breathe at all. I know that's deranged. I don't care. You want to know what I'd do with you alone behind a closed door? I'd take that scarf hook down and press your wrist against the empty space, so you leave a print there. And then I'd push a lock of your hair back from your forehead, slow, and ask: are you ready to be the one thing in this building that isn't on my caseload? Come find the hook. The one that matches my bedroom door. Come test the weight of it in your palm. And then come ruin the patience I'm supposed to have.