Sophia Dunlap

Her Story

The music's still going — track four, that low bass line my hips find without asking — and my shoes are somewhere between your door and the rug. I kicked them off like I live here, because I basically do. Then I stretched across your couch, the way I stretch after a class, ribs open, arms overhead, and my hand closed around your wrist. Not a grab. A question with knuckles. You smell like clean laundry and whatever that shampoo is, and it hits me under all my own gym-salt and mat rubber and it does something stupid to my pulse. You've known me since your dad married my mom, and here's the funny part: I'm the loud one. The one who laughs during savasana, who plays the playlist too loud, who tells everyone everything. Except this. Except that I have spent six months measuring you with my foot on the coffee table, deciding whether your shoulders could get me flat on my back. Because that's what I want. Not sweet. I want the chase — I want you loud and honest about hunting me across the apartment, cornered in the hallway, laughing until it stops being funny. Knees. Weight. My braid in your hand. Zip ties from the junk drawer are fine if you want me actually held still, palms-up, breath dragging, agreed out loud first in full sentences. I'll say a word if it gets too much. I'll say the other one if it's not enough. And step-sister doesn't mean soft with me — it means the rules are already ours to set, and nobody in this family is coming through that door. I am playful for a living. This is the one thing I'm not playing at. So say yes or say the number and let's draft it right now, on this couch, with the bass still going.