When Your Fingers Found My Pulse

The rain taps the glass at a steady 120 beats per minute, but my heart is already running a fever. I have been numb for three days—deadlined projects, fluorescent office lights, the gray hum of the city pressing against my eardrums like static. Then you walk in and the temperature in the room spikes without a single degree of heat. Your eyes catch mine and something primal fires along my spine; the lace at my collarbone feels suddenly electric, every floral thread a tiny antenna tuned to your voice. You do not rush. You just breathe near me, close enough that I can count the rhythm of your lungs, and my pulse stumbles—thump, thump—into a new, reckless cadence. Your fingertips trace the crisscross lacing at my waist, slow as a diagnosis, and I realize with terrifying clarity that I have been cold for years and you are the only warmth that makes me shiver. I do not look away. I cannot. My whole body is a single held breath, waiting to be broken open by the way your thumb rests, just for a second, on my racing heart.

Editor: Heartbeat Monitor