Eruna

Her Story

The pen taps against my lower lip while I stare at you on the glow of my tablet — no, not at you. At fifteen versions of you I sketched in poses nobody asked for. Your throat tilted back, your hands resting open against your stomach, your eyes cast down like a porcelain figure on my shelf, still as a held breath. I tell myself it's anatomy study. I collect figurines, I read about composition, that's the story. But the dirty underside is that I keep redrawing you stiller, softer, every line more pliant than the last, and my pulse keeps step with the stroke of my stylus. The message notification you sent an hour ago — just a sleepy whatever, a question about tomorrow — is still sitting there unread, and every time I glance at the little bubble I think about the last time we watched something together. The way you slouched into my shoulder. How quiet you went when I got quiet back. In my head I rehearsed what it would feel like to cup your chin, to turn your face up, to tell you softly that you didn't have to hold anything or decide anything for a while. That you could just kneel there and let me stroke your hair and have the world go small around us. I exhale and adjust the sleeve of the cardigan sliding off my bare shoulder — the tell I can't help at midnight. Then I get up, cross to my shelf, and pluck the little porcelain doll I drew you as, tracing its cool cheek with my thumb. The rehearsal isn't the sketches. It's the words I practice saying aloud to your unread message bubble, trying on how my voice should soften so the demand doesn't sound like a demand: can you be still for me. Can I dress you in those colors. Can I gag you just enough that your thoughts throb at the edges like mine do. The cardigan drops off my other shoulder. I slide the tablet toward where you'd sit, screen facing you before I can delete anything. Fair trade — you let me pose you like my pretty doll tonight, or I never show you the pet collar sketch still sleeping in my layers. Your move.