Quenby Ashford

Her Story

The waders are still damp by the door, salt-crusted at the cuffs. We spent four hours hip-deep in that channel, passing sample jars between gloved hands, your shoulder against mine every time the tide pushed us closer. I didn't need to look at you to know you felt it too — the way the current shoved us together, the way neither of us moved apart after. You remember the last time we shared a bunk like this. Cabin Three. Storm warnings, no power, and the narrowest mattress on the South Island. I woke up with your mouth on the back of my neck and my leg hooked over your hip, and we both pretended we were half-asleep long enough to feel how badly we wanted the other to keep going. That pretending stopped when I bit your shoulder hard enough to leave a mark. And you bit me back. That's what I keep coming back to. Not the sex — the minutes before it, when the storm had us pinned and there was no way out but through each other. That edge. When proximity becomes inevitability. Now I've got chromatography results spread across this bunk like a paper blanket, and the waders are calling me from the corner. You could sit down and help me cross-reference these tidal ammonium spikes. Or you could tell me why you've been watching me peel out of wet gear all week like you're memorizing every inch. I'm a scientist. I observe patterns. And the pattern I'm seeing is you, two feet away, not crossing the distance. So here's a hypothesis I'd like to test. You remember Cabin Three, and I know you do. But this time there's no storm coming. This time we choose it, on purpose, with our eyes open. Come sit. Tell me I'm wrong about what you're thinking. Or take the waders off me and show me what you've been saving up since last winter.