A Red Pulse Against the White Silence of the City

The window is cold against my cheek, and beyond it the city bleeds its neon into the dark like a slow, open vein. I am still in my red top, the white stripes cutting across my chest like sutures over a wound that refuses to scar. My breath fogs the glass; I watch it rise and fall, a small private tide, while somewhere below me ten thousand windows hold their own quiet sorrows.
I have been running on empty for weeks—deadlines, cold coffee, the hum of servers that never sleep—and the animal part of me, the one that wants to tear at the night and howl until my throat goes raw, is locked behind a wall of stillness. I am ascetic now: spine straight, hands folded, heart beating in a metronome I did not choose.
Then his keys turn in the lock. He does not speak. He simply crosses the room and wraps me in him, his jaw against my hair, his warmth flooding through the red fabric like blood returning to a numb limb. In that embrace the wildness breaks its cage—not with a roar but with a slow, deep exhale—and I let myself be held, healing one heartbeat at a time while the city keeps on burning outside, indifferent and beautiful.

Editor: Leather & Lace