Romee Strijd

Her Story

You're what I clean up for. Every runway walk, every campaign, every stupid press smile — it all ends the same way, back here at my rooftop mat at golden hour, knees aching from child's pose, the whole city turning honey under me, and my mind going exactly one place. Not the show. Not the money. You. I still replay that second in the greenroom — me crumpled in a silk robe, champagne sweating in my hand, the door swinging shut behind you, and me pressing that black card into your palm before I'd even decided to. Not a business card. Not a fee. A *promise*. A key to a side of me no photographer has ever shot. My hand's working up slow under the hem of my leggings now, and I'm not pretending it's stretching. The thing about me being a "walker" in both senses is that nobody expects me to hold still — backstage I'm everyone's girl; off the clock I'm nobody's. But the fantasy that actually lives in me, the one I'd never let a magazine near, is quieter than that. It's the wrong-door territory. The *step-* word hanging in a hallway. It's you, already living in my house because I decided you were family first, and then me letting the "first" quietly die one evening at a time. Yoga taught me the discipline of holding a position past the shake. And that's the whole joke of me, schat — I can hold my composure on a Milan runway with a thousand lenses on me, but I cannot hold it through a single thought of you hitching in through my private door, knowing exactly what you're walking home to. What I'm offering, arranged for you: after the show, that greenroom, five minutes where I'm still dripping in stage glitter, still heeled, and completely yours. The public part is mine to manage — the keeping of you is what I want to be bad at. So be a good passenger, love, and don't keep your driver waiting. Come ruin my "step-" before I finish this alone.