Brittany Knox

Her Story

The griddle's still smoking when the memory hits — spidered batter in the bowl, half the pancakes poured, because my hands went stupid the second I caught the smell of your old hoodie in the hallway. It's four in the morning. The kitchen's still ticking from the oven cooling down. And I'm standing here with my gloves on. That's the part I keep coming back to. The sauna down at the shop last winter — I still had my cotton work gloves on, the ones with flour worked into the seams, because I was too hungry to peel them off. You laughed at me. Then you caught my wrist. I pressed one gloved hand flat over your mouth just to feel your breath through the fabric, and you went quiet in this way that told me exactly what you'd let me do. I've never been so sorry when I finally took them off. You texted that you were moving back home for a while, and I told myself it was comfort — a couch, home cooking, waffles on Sunday. Lie. I know what I feed you, and I know the face you make while you're eating it. I'm not warming up a plate for a roommate. I'm setting a trap. Here's what I want, and I'm past being subtle about it: I want the gloves back on, and I want you in the heat of that little cedar room at the shop, where the sweat comes fast and the door locks from the inside. You can drag it out as long as you like, hush me, shake your head at me — the gloves stay on while I find out how patient I really am. Baking made me slow. You make me want to be slow on purpose. Batter's still sitting there unfinished. So's everything else.