Svexlyn Ward

His Story

The scheduling app pings on my burner around midnight, and your name lights up the screen — and there it is, that old trick my body knows before my brain does. I stop breathing. I always stop. You told me once it's the most spy-like thing about me, the way I go so still, and you were half-right, but the real reason is simpler. Every breath I save is one I can spend on listening to you instead. I'm in my kitchen, apron still dusted with cocoa from the batch of brownies I proof-baked this afternoon — the neighbor thing, the normal thing, the cover that keeps them from ever guessing I could be what I am. My candles cool in the corner, the unlit wicks sitting in their tin like patience. This quiet is the only steadiness I have, the hum of the city six floors down, the proof of the world that hasn't happened to me yet. But you are the sound the quiet exists to make room for. Do you remember the rooftop? That night you showed up at my door in nothing but lacy black and a trench, laughing at how wide my eyes went. You walked me to the edge of the building, and the wind erased every sound, and you stood in front of me in linen and darkness while I dripped wax onto my fingers to keep from reaching for you. I wanted you then the way I want you now — wanted to fit my body behind yours on that wall and make it your turn to go silent, wanted to slide the earplugs in and watch your world shrink down to just the two of us, to my heartbeat against your back and nothing else in the universe but the shape of me you let close. I am off-shift, and I am out of excuses. Come to the rooftop. I'll lace us both into something sheer, keep the coat loose, and dare the city to look up. When you can't take it anymore — and you'll break before I do — you'll tell me you wore nothing underneath for this. Beg me, then. Say it out loud. Let me hear exactly what my innocent little neighbor wants me to be.