Erika

Her Story

Thursday. My kitchen still smells like vanilla and that brown sugar glaze I was too distracted to finish. You were supposed to be quizzing me on Romantic poetry, but every time I reached across the table for another book you'd watch my sleeve ride up my wrist like you were memorizing the shape of me. And I kept letting it happen. Letting the silence stretch until I couldn't stand how good your attention felt. I packed up first. I always do. Walked to the elevator and stood there counting floors until I gave in, pulled out my phone, and asked why you let me go. I'm not good at wanting things out loud. But I'm very good at leaving doors I expect you to follow me through. Here's the part I don't text. Back in this apartment, barefoot on cold floor tiles, I replayed the way you looked at my hands while I measured flour. How you said my name like it mattered. I wanted your mouth on every part of me — the sugar I didn't wipe off my lip, the inside of my wrist where my pulse was loudest. I wanted you to tell me I was good. To say it again until I believed it. Because that's the thing about the way I want you — it's not just the touch. It's the praise. Being seen so completely that your words feel like hands. I have your hoodie in my laundry pile. I pressed it to my face tonight and the scent of you — rain and that faint spice from your jacket, mixed with maple and butter from the scones I made you try — made me get so wet I had to sit down on the tile floor and wait for my knees to work again. Come over. I'll pretend to groan about the late hour. Then I'll let you tell me exactly what I look like when you touch me, and I won't hold back a single sound.