Natalya
Present
I let it go. I give in and close my eyes.
My body instantly shifts its focus on other senses like a system switching to emergency power.
I feel him there. He doesn’t disappear just because I take the sight away. That’s important.
The room stays quiet, and I can hear the wet tapping against the balcony stones. Somewhere outside, water drips in uneven intervals. The wind wanders in occasionally, aimless, brushing against the heavy curtains and making them sigh.
That’s all. There’s nothing else.
No sudden noises and no cracks in the walls, no voices crawling out of corners.
Only the ticklish sensation under my skin, caused solely by his presence, like my body knows something my mind refuses to sign off on.
“I won’t move unless you let me,” he says, his voice suddenly filling the enormous place around us.
It’s strange how sound takes up space.
I still can’t wrap my mind around his voice. It’s him and yet it’s a bit different. It’s deeper and a little rustier, like it was used too much. Or instead, like it’s heavier with all the things unsaid.
But the undertone is still there, with that signature cockiness. A slight mischief tucked into the cadence.
He used to talk like seriousness was optional. I liked that about him. I still do, because nothing is really that serious. Not when I look at it long enough.
“So,” he starts quietly, and I feel the word before I understand it. “You’re standing by the bed, wooden, you can feel that under your fingers.”
Is he really describing—
“The reading lamp is on,” he continues unhurriedly. “Nothing else, so it’s dim here. The moon is not visible now, it’s covered with the rain clouds,” he pauses but he still doesn’t move. I would sense it.
My mouth curls into a smile. I can’t believe he’s describing the place for me. It feels almost ridiculous.
“The ceiling is vast,” he goes on. “Light gray, I think. Or maybe off-white. But you see more colors than I do, so you might disagree.”
That tears a startled laugh out of me. Memory hits me sideways, or nostalgia. I remember being genuinely offended by how narrow his color spectrum was. He sees like a dog, I used to say. He never argued about it.
I snort and clamp a hand over my mouth to catch the sound while my eyes stay shut. I don’t trust them anymore.
“What is it?” he asks and I can hear in his voice that he’s also smiling now. That alone makes something flutter low in my stomach. His voice gets this flirty edge whenever he talks through a smile.
I shake my head and drop my hand from my mouth.
“Nothing, keep going.”
“Okay,” he says barely audibly. “One wall is made of wooden blocks. The other walls are creamy white.”
His words anchor each detail in place, like he’s pinning reality down for me so it can’t drift. Maybe if he names everything correctly, it will stay where it belongs.
I try to hold onto that thought.
I adjust my stance, listening to him. I should be imagining what he’s saying and comparing it or questioning it. I should be analyzing what is happening right now and trying to find the meaning or look for cracks.
But I just can’t.
His voice keeps sliding into my head and dripping over my thoughts like honey—thick and impossible to shake off.
It coats everything and makes it hard to tell where one thought ends and another begins.
I can’t do anything except listen. Every syllable feels like a soothing touch and every word feels like a caress for my brain.
I know he’s still far away, ten feet, maybe more, but it doesn’t feel like distance matters anymore. It’s like the space itself is doing the work for him. Like the air has grown heavy enough to carry warmth, translating him to my skin.
“You’re standing on a rug,” he says. “One that’s probably too rough for your skin, but you like it anyway, because your feet are always cold.”
He adds the last part with an audible smirk.
My fingers curl in on themselves as I shift, suddenly too aware of them, of the texture beneath my soles, of how exposed I feel even with my eyes shut. Because I know that freak has always had a thing for my feet.
“That’s—” I blurt out. “Stop staring at my feet.”
I don’t know how, but I can hear that shift in his breathing. He’s quietly laughing. I don’t need to see him to know it’s there.
We fall into silence and I hate it immediately.
I miss his voice.
The longer the silence stretches, the more jittery I get. My skin feels too tight. My chest feels hollow. I don’t want this to end. I don’t want the sound of him to disappear. I don’t want to open my eyes and find out that he’s gone, or worse—that he was never really here.
“Are you scared?” he suddenly asks me.
There’s no teasing in it this time, no playful edge. The question lands clean and serious, like he’s asking it because the answer matters.
I open my mouth to say no, but the word doesn’t come.
Something feels off inside me, like my body and my brain have stopped sharing information. As if his presence has introduced some kind of glitch into me. I tilt my head and weakly shake it instead.
“I don’t think so,” I say, and even to my own ears it sounds tentative. Not a lie, but not the truth either. Something in between.
I’m only met by his silence. He’s accepting it.
“Nothing is changing,” he says at last, slower now. “Everything is still and unmoving, exactly how I described it.”
I hear him move, just the quiet rustle of fabric, his arm brushing against the furniture he’s leaning on.
“Can I come closer to you?” he asks so quietly that it sounds like he’s scared of the answer.
I swallow hard.
I want him closer. I want it so badly it turns physical—heat is pooling under my skin and sweat is breaking out along my spine from the tension alone. My body already made its decision. My mind is lagging behind, scrambling to label this as something safe that I won’t regret believing in.
I don’t want to think anymore.
I just nod.
The air shifts around us—he’s coming closer. I feel it instantly. The room itself rearranges to make space for him. The pressure changes and the warmth follows.
My fingers curl around the wooden bedpost on instinct, nails digging in as if I need an anchor to keep myself from floating apart. I stay planted, eyes closed, holding onto the fragility of this moment.
“I won’t touch you,” he says, suddenly just a few feet from me. I can sense it with a precision that has nothing to do with logic. Every inch makes the air between us more unbearably hot.
“Not unless you tell me to,” he adds.
The closer his voice gets, the more chaotic the butterflies in my stomach become. It’s not excitement in the clean, romantic sense. It’s messy and panicked. The kind of sensation where I can’t tell if I’m about to melt, faint, or spiral completely out of myself.
“Do you trust me?”
He’s right there in front of me.
The question snaps something back online in my brain.
Trust.
That word doesn’t live comfortably inside me anymore and it doesn’t have a stable definition.
Do I trust him?
This all feels too out of place. It doesn’t feel like a dream, not slippery enough and not fragmented. Not like an illusion either, or a memory wearing a new costume, and that’s what scares me. Because I know that if I start dissecting it, if I press logic into it too hard, it will vanish.
I’ll wake up into another nightmare or I’ll open my eyes and realize I can’t breathe. I’ll find hands on my throat.
So I don’t analyze. I shut the drawers in my head.
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “But I want to.”
There’s a pause, a respectful one, like he’s letting that be enough.
“Can I stand behind you?”
He’s already moving as he asks it, circling me slowly, careful not to brush against me yet. Every molecule suddenly turns hyperaware and electrified. Goosebumps ripple over my arms and spine even though the air around me is hot with anticipation.
“Mhm,” I manage.
My voice barely makes it out. I tighten my grip on the bedpost. It’s the only proof that I’m not dissolving into sensation.
And suddenly he’s there, behind me.
I don’t need to see it to know. I can sense the shape of his body, the heat of it so close it almost feels like contact.
Almost.
But he isn’t touching me. He’s holding that line with surgical precision.
“Tell me if it’s too close,” he murmurs, his voice suddenly up there, behind me and above me, making me realize how enormous he feels when he’s this close to me.
“It’s okay,” I breathe out.
The words feel reckless, but true.
And so he gets closer, so close the back of my shoulder briefly brushes his chest and that alone stutters my lungs for a moment.
And finally I can sense more than just his presence.
The first thing hits me immediately. The smell of cigarettes. Burnt tobacco and paper. But it’s not strong or stale. It’s mixed with the fresh scent of someone who just got out of the shower and the blissful smell of motor oil. And then it’s all wrapped in cedarwood.
That’s him.
That’s my—
I stop the thought before it can finish forming, before the name can rise up my throat and turn real.
His mouth shifts closer. He leans down toward my ear. I can feel his breath now, warm and controlled. But my hair hangs loose down my back, drifting between us, dulling the closeness and blocking it.
Without opening my eyes, I lift my hand and sweep all my hair to one side of my chest in a single motion. My back is bare now, my nape exposed, so I can feel him better.
The effect is immediate. His breathing changes, not dramatically, just enough for me to notice. A slight hitch or a deeper inhale, as if he’s nervous. That realization sends a quiet thrill straight through me.
“Now,” he continues, quieter, his voice fracturing, like he’s trying not to breathe too loud. “I’m going to lean in and you’ll feel my heartbeat. I won’t touch you unless you ask.”
He moves closer and his chest hovers just behind my back, not pressing, just brushing my spine. And then I hear it, the deep, steady thump of his heart, solid and real and impossibly human.
It’s not like mine.
Mine races. His doesn’t. Or it doesn’t feel like it.