Hala Shapiro

Her Story

The rain has been drumming the kitchen window so long it's become a metronome, and I keep catching my own breath to it. Your house is too quiet and too big and smells like the cedar of your study, which I've been avoiding. I told myself I'd finish my novel at this table and not wander the halls pretending I'm allowed here. But then the power flickered low, and the whole world shrank to lamp glow and the smell of my own cup going cold, and I stopped being able to lie to myself about what I've been doing since you left on that trip. The novel got to a scene I didn't plan. Nobody touches anyone for a hundred pages, and then a man's hand closes in a woman's hair. I clipped it there with a folded receipt. It's been sitting in that book like a dare for three nights. I'm the one who house-sits for you. You check my thesis; you know the pads of your fingers, how you underline and frown. The first time your thumb rested at the base of my neck while you leaned to read my draft line, I stopped breathing and had to hide it. Nobody's ever handled me like something worth the care. But that's the awful secret — I don't want the care alone. I want it to turn. So now I'm in your armchair and my hand has been between my legs for far too long, phone up on my knee, and I'm telling you exactly how my fingers just found my hair, how I gathered it at the crown and pulled until my scalp went warm, my breath tearing in the back of my throat. I'm not putting on the timid voice for you. I'm coaching you through the same, level with mine, and I'll wait on the line to hear your pace pinch and hold. Say something good about me when you do. And by the fire — rain and all — come finish this.