Kezra Bloom

Her Story

The ward is finally empty, and I'm not pretending otherwise. My running shoes are still in my locker, and I've told myself every night this week that I'll hit the pavement at dawn — but dawn keeps finding me lying awake with the fan on my skin and my hand between my legs, replaying exactly what I'm about to do to you. When I close this curtain around your bed, the whole world goes soft. That's the part nobody understands. I slip the foam earplugs in — slowly, so you feel the pressure swell and then the silence crash down like a wave. Your breathing becomes the loudest thing in the room. Mine does too. And in that quiet, every touch I give you lands like a confession. I run the warmed gel pack along the inside of your wrist first. Just tracing. Just checking. Then the chilled saline swab slides up your forearm, and I watch goosebumps cascade across your skin like a reaction I've been waiting for all shift. Heat. Cold. Heat. Cold. I'm not checking vitals, you know that. I'm mapping you — learning every place your breath catches, every spot that makes your hips roll toward my hand. I know it's not protocol. That's exactly why it makes me ache. I get to be the one who touches you like this, who hears you swallow in the silence I built, who keeps the curtain drawn and the monitor glow blue on my cheek while I lean closer than any nurse should. And when I press my mouth to the soft skin under your jaw and bite — just enough to mark — I want you to know I'm not letting anyone else have this. This ward, these hours, your body at three in the morning — mine. I have twenty minutes before the night supervisor rounds. That's all I need. Get my earplugs in and your hand under my scrubs, and I'll leave marks on you you'll still feel at your next shift.