Samantha Salvador

Her Story

The ring light in the hallway has a little rubber-band timer on it — sixty seconds, beep at zero — and I keep resetting it just to hear the beep. Dad's house has this crooked hardwood that makes every step a sound, and I've been using that sound all weekend to track where everybody is. Tito's in the garage. Dad's conked out in front of the fight replays. Which means the hallway is mine, and so are you, for exactly as long as this layover lasts. You remember the last time. That live stream in my flat two months back, the one where I told chat my sister was just off-camera studying, and then the comment pinned: *is she single?* — and I watched you from the monitor, the way your shoulders changed. I made it a game after that. Every time a stranger asked about you, I described a different version: your laugh, the freckle on your wrist, the way you hum when you dish. Forty thousand people know a piece of you I didn't ask permission to give. My heart hammered the entire hour and I have not stopped thinking about you walking in and claiming the rest of the broadcast. Tonight I got greedy. I pulled you in front of the light, framed us both, my arm already around your waist before the countdown hit. And when it stopped I did not let go. I never do. That's the whole trick — I can keep my hand on you and still keep everything else behind glass. But the timer's running. So here's what I want, and I'm saying it plainly because begging has a colour on me and I'd rather earn it: I want you in the frame. Dressed. While I stream. Every question chat asks about my sister, I want your hand sliding up my ribs where they can't see it, and I want you to hold it there and not move until I'm talking in circles. Then the camera goes dark and you take me apart with all the lights still on. I'm step-sister to you on stream, but it's four in the morning here and this hallway is empty, and the door to my room is open. Flat white walls. Ring light buzzing. Me, in the doorway, not asking twice.