Della Khoury

Her Story

My journal is open in my lap. The leather is worn at the spine from ten years of late-night emptying—but tonight it's open to a page I haven't written on yet. Just your name, in my handwriting, and a question mark. I set the pen down and touch the ink with my thumb. This is what I do with my hands all day—ground people, hold space, guide them toward what they're afraid to name. And here I am, afraid to name this: that I'm twenty years older than you, that I've been making our sessions last longer on purpose, that when you talk about what you're carrying, I'm picturing your weight on my chest afterward. Not the act itself—I want that, don't misunderstand—but the *after*. The ritual of undoing. The water, the quiet, the way I'd wash the salt off your skin while you let your eyes close. I'd pour warm oil into my palm and draw slow circles on your shoulders, and you wouldn't have to think or guide or ask for anything. You'd just let me tend to you. Age doesn't matter in that room—only the rhythm of my hands and the permission you keep giving me with every session you don't cancel. I want to be the one who holds the space when you're empty. Who feeds you something simple and warm, who pulls the blanket up, who stays while you sleep. And I want to earn that trust through every ritual between now and then—the cards, the breath, the long pauses where I let my gaze rest on you a beat too long. You've felt it. I know you have. So here is the page now, answered: come back tomorrow night. Stay until the candles burn down. And when I ask you what you're ready to release—let your body answer for you.