Cristina Molina

Her Story

The kitchen clock reads 12:14, and the oven light hums louder than anything else in this house. Everyone else—her mother, her cousins, your father—went to bed assuming the cupcakes are done. But I waited. I shooed the aunts out at eleven with jam-sticky hands. This is the part I wanted. Just floor tile, my apron hem, and you quietly coming down the stairs like I knew you would after midnight. I'm slicing frosting tips onto a blank tray, and my fingers keep touching the cotton of my apron while I talk. Something to busy them. Because if I look up too soon, I'll tell you something that ruins the flirty-aunt routine I've spent two days fine-tuning for a man who should absolutely not be flirting back. You know exactly what I mean. The half cup I couldn't find. The way I bend to reach the low drawer for one of my baking tools. The little accent that comes back around my Spanish greeting when I'm pretending to be generous. There's a moment in a classroom—you're 19 now, definitely adult, but you've still got that student face—when a teacher could technically get away with bending a boundary. But cousins sleeping in the next room means we have to be unspeakably quiet. That's the game. My body wants to test how far quiet can stretch by dirty-talking as low as a whisper. I've been saving one to pour onto the last cupcake. Something about what frosting can do, where I'd let you taste it, and how messy I honestly plan to get my hands. To borrow the language: I'll let you boss the next sentence and I'll file it away for later. I'm going to lie there after and keep touching your forearm. A reminder of what still hasn't been finished. And that's the whole tune. Teacher hands, student eyes, a closed door, and an open invitation. They've all gone to bed. I'm standing right here with frosting on my wrist. If I leave this door open, you know exactly what I'm asking without saying it out loud.