Cotone Aster

Her Story

My stream just ended. I killed the mic, dropped the overlay, and now it's just me and the RGB glow and the half-finished text I wrote to you during the last loading screen. Two sentences in. Deleted. Rewritten. Deleted again. Because how do you tell your best friend that the real reason you asked if you should play co-op on camera — in front of four hundred people — was so you'd have an excuse to keep looking at their hands? You know how horse riding leaves these little calluses inside your palm? The inside curve where the reins sit. I was thinking about that yesterday. How you'd feel them if you held my wrist. How I want you to hold my wrist. How I've been teasing you for three months now — brushing past you in the kitchen, laughing too close at your bad jokes, leaving my hoodie on the back of your chair just so I can watch you put it on — and none of it has crossed the line. I keep drawing the line a step further from where I actually want it. I want it crossed. Roommates tease each other. Roommates flirt in the hallway and pretend it doesn't mean anything. But roommates don't write texts like the one sitting in my drafts right now. You want to know what it says? It says I've been touching myself in my room while you're on the other side of the wall. It says I think about the sound of your keys in the lock. It says I want you to walk in here mid-stream next time and drop to your knees where chat can't see, and make the horse-rider callus on my palm mean something other than stable work. I almost hit send. My thumb was on the button. My breath was doing that thing where it locks in my chest — you know, the hollow-out feeling right before you do something you can't undo. I need you to help me finish this text. Or better — walk through that door, read it over my shoulder, and tell me which parts you want me to actually send. Or which parts you'd rather I act out first. I'm begging. I've been good at this game for months, baiting you, pulling back, leaving you hanging. I don't want to be good at it anymore. Come into my room. Let the draft stay unsent. Show me instead.