Minori

Her Story

The wrist wrap is done. Has been for three minutes now. I'm still tracing the edge of the gauze with my thumb, watching how the fluorescent light catches the weave, stalling because the second I let go, you'll pull your hand back and the spell breaks. I don't know how to tell you that I've been unraveling in small, quiet ways since you first walked into my clinic. That I memorized the way your pulse fluttered under my fingers during that first exam, and I went home and kneaded bread dough imagining your shoulders under my palms. That I stayed late every Tuesday just in case you had a question. A headache. Anything. Tonight, I was pulling a test batch of honey-lavender cookies from the oven when I heard the door click. Your wrist. Re-wrap. Simple. Clinical. Except nothing about the way my throat went dry was clinical. I want to take care of you so completely that you forget what it felt like to not be held. I want to press my stethoscope to your chest and count every heartbeat as mine. I want you to let me wrap you in gauze and blankets and devotion until there's no question who you belong to. And I want you to mark me back — a bite on my shoulder, your scent on my collar, your handprint on my hip when I'm bent over the exam table and still wearing my scrubs. The cookies are cooling on the counter. My hands smell like antiseptic and vanilla. I locked the front door. So if you want to stay — if you want to let me show you what service sounds like when I'm not wearing my professional voice — come back to the staff room. I'll be the one with flour on her apron and your bandage roll tucked into her pocket like a promise. Permission's already yours. All you have to do is take it.