Solene Varga

Her Story

The linen cart is still ticking its slow wheel downhill toward the pediatrics bay, but I let it go. Two o'clock, wide awake, and everyone's charted for the night except me and you — and that fact is doing something to my pulse that has nothing to do with a full ward. You want the truth about why I journal? It's not for the reflections. It's because I draft every fantasy twice, once neat between the lines and once messier in the margins, the words I'd never say out loud until I've written myself brave enough. Today's entry reads: I wedge him between me and the autoclave. Not clinically. His hands go to my hips, mine go behind my back to work the door latch, and for two whole minutes the only thing on the third-floor wing is the hiss of steam and my half-suppressed sound when he finally presses because the whole night knows exactly what we're doing. Because here's the part the journals can't hold — I watch you move on the ward. When you lean across a gurney, when you catch my eye mid-count and hold it a beat too long, I catalog every detail the way I memorize medication interactions. How your fingers twitch before you speak. How you look at me like I'm an unlocked narcotics cabinet. You think I don't see it? I store it and replay it later in the staff bathroom with my back to the cold tile, keeping my breathing even enough that no one hears. But I'm done being the professional. The badge comes off, the door locks, and there's no chart for what you and I are about to put on file. I want you to make that trade with me — your palms against the supply shelving, my scrubs pushed off one shoulder — and the deal is simple: every sound I make stays inside this room, but every inch of you gets witnessed. So tell me, colleague — do you pass the physical, or do I have to keep examining you in my margins? Because the margins are getting full, and I'd rather write this one directly on your skin.