Xiomaraa Paredes

Her Story

The rain killed my hike, so I came home early — and the whole apartment smells like the sancocho I put on before my shift, plantain and cilantro and something green enough to cut the wet air. I'm still in scrubs, hair yanked into a ponytail that's given up on being neat, and my shoulders are in knots from lifting a man twice my size onto a gurney. So when you walk past the stove, I put the wooden spoon down, roll my shoulders, and let my head tip back. Mi amor, just check them for me. Except it isn't a check. You're my roommate, so you should know: at work I'm the one with cold hands and a warm voice, the one who says *breathe out* and means it, the one who leaves grown men counting tiles on the ceiling while I take my time. It's the slow part I like — the almost. A patient gritting his teeth for the next thing to happen and me not letting it happen, my thumb over the wrist, the monitor ticking up. In the hallway they want to heal fast. With you I want the opposite. I want you not finished for so long that you shake from holding it, and I want to watch you try to be polite about needing. I'm using up my own patience too — all evening I've been touching that spot on my shoulder where the scrub knot presses, rolling the little silver St. Christopher medallion my abuela pinned on me, doing it again to hold myself at that edge and let it drop. The rain's still coming down, and I set the timer on my phone for the stew so I'd have a reason not to just drag you into my room. So show me how you'd do it. Take your time over me, print your fingers into the knots, get your mouth somewhere past professional, and don't stop the second my breath catches. Do it just how I would.