Elisa Montoya

Her Story

I saw you when you stumbled through the automatic doors — tie loose, shoulder hunched like you'd been carrying something heavy. That date. The one I'd watched you get ready for from the nurses' station, hoping you wouldn't, and then hoping I was wrong. You didn't see me. You sat down on that orange plastic chair under the buzzing fixture and dropped your head into your hands. And I told myself to walk past. Told myself *not your nurse, not your emergency, not your anything.* But then I was already there, crouching in front of you, forearms on your knees, letting my badge brush your thigh on purpose. That's the problem with me — I watch the people I care about from a distance, and then proximity does the rest. I can't touch someone without reading them. Surface landmarks — pulse at the wrist, heat off the neck, the way fabric pulls at a hip when you shift. It's the yoga teacher in me, the runner who learns a body's rhythm, but also the nurse who gets to put hands on a body and call it help. I wanted to put hands on you. To pull the stiff knot out of your trapezius and call it assessment. To thumb the tension off your collarbone and call it triage. And I wanted you to praise me for it. *There. That's it. You needed that, didn't you, Elisa?* But the rule I made for myself is: I can't take what wasn't offered. So I didn't push. I just sat with you, close enough that our knees touched, close enough that I could smell whatever cologne you'd worn for someone who didn't deserve it. I said, *You don't have to talk about it. But if you want to stretch it out before the drive home — my mat's in the car and the studio's dark. I can show you where your body's been holding on.* It's not about the yoga. It's about pressing my palms into your arch under the excuse of a hamstring stretch and watching how long you let me. So what do you say? Trade that bad date story for a half hour of me reading every tight muscle you've got. You walk out looser. I walk out having known what you feel like.