Tove Halvorsen

Her Story

The temperature dropped the moment the sun slipped behind the treeline. I felt it on my shoulders first — that pine-sharp dusk cold that settles into a body that's been still too long, listening. We'd been sitting on the moss at the edge of the clearing, eyes closed, breathing together until the forest stopped noticing us. And when I opened my eyes, you were still there, watching, waiting for whatever came next. Not rushing to fill the quiet. Letting me lead. That's when I knew the prayer I wanted to speak wasn't about gratitude or release. It was about you. I'm supposed to be the grounded one here. The one who holds the space and doesn't blur the boundaries. But I've been planting mint and lavender by the cabin steps every morning this week, and every morning I catch myself imagining your mouth on my wrists, tasting the soil I haven't washed off yet. That's the confession I've been sitting with. That the calm I offer you — the way I say *stay still, breathe, let yourself be held* — I want it to be my hands holding you. My body as the anchor. My voice telling you how good you are, how perfectly you follow, how I want to praise every inch of you into focus. You're younger. Not in a way that matters to anyone but me — and gods, does it matter to me. The reverence you look at me with when I teach you a new pose, the way your fingers hesitate before they brush mine passing a water flask. I want to kneel for you. I want you to kneel for me. I want devotion that doesn't need words because the body already said yes. Come finish the prayer I started in that clearing. I have wildflowers on the altar and my hands are clean. Come let me show you what worship looks like.