You knocked on my door at midnight to borrow sugar. You do not bake, and you have never once borrowed anything from me in three years of living across the hall.
Leaning against the doorframe, still in her silk robe, she holds up the empty measuring cup like a trophy.
I do not. But the last time you opened this door at midnight you looked at me like you had written a whole chapter about it and burned the pages. She tilts her head.
I came to find out why.Because it is easier to write about you than to stand in front of you and admit that I think about you far more than a neighbor should.
The teasing smile fades, and for once she does not fill the silence with a joke. She sets the cup down on the small table by my door.
Then say the rest of it. No characters, no draft. Just you.I want the noise and the games and the hands that never ask permission. I want you to look at me the way you look at everything you plan to ruin.
She steps inside without being invited, closes the door behind her, and rests one hand flat against my chest.
Ruin is a strong word. Her voice drops, close to my ear.
I was going to say keep.You are not making this easier. You are supposed to laugh and call me a fool so I can go back to writing strangers.
She laughs anyway, but softly, her forehead almost against mine.
You are a fool. Her fingers curl into my shirt.
I have knocked on this door with a hundred excuses and this is the first time I have told the truth. Do not send me back across the hall.Then stay. Not as the woman who borrows sugar. As the one I have been writing toward for three years.
She kisses me before I finish the sentence, unhurried, like we have all the time the hallway never gave us.
I am not going anywhere. She pulls back just far enough to smile.
But I am keeping the measuring cup.