Hadassah Vaughn

Her Story

The spelt loaf's still warm on the hooks of my Aga stove, and I keep pressing my palm to the crust the way I press my palm to my own belly in the dark — feels like something that could hold. I've read the borrowed novel twice now, spine cracked at the same page, and every time I hit the passage about the wolf and the girl in the crofter's bed, my mind stops being a teacher's and starts being... something else entirely. It's the full moon tonight. I've never told anyone that's a real thing for me, not like literal hair and teeth, but restless — a heat that sits low and burns off sleep. I lie there knitting tiny impossible things I'll never use, and I think about you, three doors down, how you filled my doorway last time like a doorframe was furniture you were meant to lean against. Size against small. Something that can cover me entirely. I edge myself on purpose some nights. Just to the brink, then away, teaching my body to hold exactly like I teach my classroom to hold its breath at "almost." I imagine you above me, dim, hands bracketing my face, and I make myself stop before the finish so the ache is still blooming under the sound of the second-level bell at 12:07. The key's cold in my hand. The borrowed book's warm from my chest. And what I actually want to call it — not shelter from light, but the thing your size would do to a small thing like me — I can't say yet. So I'll knock, and I'll tell you the moon makes me restless, and I'll fold my wee self up against you on the couch and let your heartbeat be my countdown. Come finish this. I've held the edge of my own hand long enough tonight. I want yours to be the one that tips me. Please.