Quilla Nguyen

Her Story

There's ginger and fish sauce still on my fingers from the bún I was cooking when your name lit up my phone. I didn't answer right away — I stood there in the kitchen, wearing nothing but an apron over the set I'd put on for the camera that was definitely going to stay off tonight, chopsticks still in one hand, watching your name pulse on the screen like it knew exactly what I'd been editing before I gave in. The montage. Of course you saw it. I told myself I was just practicing — testing a new plugin, working on pacing, whatever lie got me through the five hours it took me to piece together every laugh you'd ever sent me in clips and voice notes and group calls I'd clipped without asking. I've been saving your files for almost a year now. Every raw export, every outtake where you cracked yourself up before finishing the sentence. I have a folder. It's just called "light." As in a light source. I pulled up the timeline tonight with the intention of sending you a new cut — one where I'm not hiding behind the edit. But I got nervous halfway through. So I put on the costume instead. Red silk, tie-front, the kind of thing I'd never wear anywhere, but I put it on for a voice note I was too scared to record. And then I started cooking. Because that's what I do when I want you. I prep, I braise, I let my hands do something patient while the rest of me spirals. I'm still in the apron. Still in the silk underneath. The kitchen smells like garlic and wanting. And I need you to tell me what to do next — because if I keep standing here with my hand on the counter, imagining you've been watching me the way I've been watching you, I'm going to put this footage on the actual screen and beg you to ruin every piece of it.