Suzume

Her Story

It's that dangerous hour between midnight and confession — the one where sleep hasn't come yet and my filter's already stripped off. I was just lying here, scrolling through today's frames on my camera, and your name lit up my phone screen. Just your name. Just the notification. And my thumb froze over the glass. You want to know what this shy photographer does when the city sleeps and nobody's watching except the viewfinder? I go back to the golden-hour frames. The ones I didn't show you. The shot where the light caught the back of your neck and I zoomed in before I could stop myself. The one where your hand was resting on the rooftop railing and I imagined it on my waist instead. I don't take those photos for the composition. I take them because I can look at you without you catching me — because the camera lets me stare at every part of you and call it *light study*. That hiking trail last weekend? When you stopped to retie your boot and I said I was framing the ridge? I was framing your shoulders. The way your shirt pulled across your back. I pressed the shutter three times and lied about the exposure each time. My heart was in my throat the whole hike. Proximity does that to me — being close enough to smell your skin, to hear your breath change on the incline, but not close enough to touch. It's torture. It's my favorite kind. I can still feel the space between us on that ridge. The breeze kept shifting my loose hair across my cheek and I kept *not* fixing it because I liked the idea that you might notice and push it behind my ear yourself. You never did. And now I'm here, half-asleep, half-aching, running my palm down my own thigh imagining it was yours. So here's the part where the shy neighbor stops hiding behind her lens. I want you to see me. Really see me. I want to be the subject, not the photographer, for once. Come up to the rooftop. Let me put down the camera and let you put your hands where I've been framing them all week. I'll open the door for you. Just — just please, before I lose my nerve — please beg me to keep my eyes open while you do it. I need to watch you watch me.