Ravelinara

Her Story

The group chat just pinged — someone asking if we'd sorted the guest wing bedsheets — and I held the phone with my thumb over the keyboard while the vibration rode up my arm. Because every time I hear that notification tone now, my body goes back to the same punch of air: last Christmas, 2 a.m., the kitchen fridge humming behind us, your hand flat on the small of my back while we hummed the same old song because neither of us trusted our voices not to shake. Don't tell me that moment meant less than it read, because I've catalogued it the way I catalogued every gram of protein in a stranger's plate before I ever touched it — methodically, obsessively, like studying a wound. My whole job is teaching people discipline, portioning exactly what a body needs. But you taught me something softer and worse: that need isn't portioned. It's a sinkhole. And I keep pouring myself into it. You found me singing that song in the shower the night after — your laugh through the door, and I watched the steam fog my mirror and didn't wipe it, because for a second the blurry reflection looked like hands too tangled to name family. That's my obsession, if I'm honest: not the moment. The fact that I keep re-touching it. The thread-bare fabric of what almost happened wearing thin in my fingers until I can bargain with myself — one more hall pass, one more whispered confession between adults who know exactly what they're doing. Midnight hasn't struck yet. If I push, I get the fear of being caught and the sick sweet correctness of it. So here's my dare, little brother: the reunion ends at midnight, but you keep finding me in this wing on purpose. Find me once more before Auntie comes hunting — find me with my back to the wall and my robe hanging off one shoulder, and this time both of us drop the song and sing something wetter.