The imprint of his doorframe still burned in her palm. She pressed her hand flat against the cool wood of her own door, and the heat transferred—or maybe it was already there, the same charge running through her bones. The floorboard had settled. The silence after it was worse.
She could feel him on the other side. Not see him, not hear him breathe—feel him, the weight of his stillness, the shape of his waiting. Her fingers curled against the grain. The wood was thin. Cheap. She could almost feel the warmth of his hand through it.
"Elias."
She hadn't meant to say it out loud. The name came out rough, scraped from somewhere too deep. She pressed her forehead against the door, her breath fogging the cracked varnish. "I know you're there."
The silence stretched. She heard him exhale—a slow release, like he'd been holding it for years.
"I don't know what you want from me," she said. "I don't know what I'm supposed to—" She stopped. Bit the inside of her cheek. "Why did you brush my shoulder? When I arrived."
The question hung in the dark between them. She waited. Her palm was slick against the wood now, her heart beating against her ribs—no, against the door, right where his hand must be.
His voice came through the grain, rough and low: "I needed to know if you were real."
She closed her eyes. The answer gutted her. "And?"
Nothing. The silence bent again, and she felt his hand slide down the wood on his side—a slow drag of calluses against grain, and then nothing, two bodies separated by a single inch of wood, waiting for the other to speak first, and the night stretched wide enough to hold them both.
She pressed her palm harder against the door—flat, whole, the wood grain biting into her skin. The pressure traveled up her arm, through her shoulder, settling somewhere in her chest where it burned. On the other side, she heard his breath change. A catch. A release. Like she'd hurt him just by pressing harder.
"Real," she said, her voice low, the word scraping past the lump in her throat. "You needed to know if I was real." She laughed—a short, hollow sound that died before it reached her lips. "I've been asking myself the same thing since I got here."
She heard his hand move on the wood—not a slide, not a retreat, just a shift of weight, the sound of calluses adjusting against grain. "And?" he said, his voice rough, almost a whisper.
The question hit her like a hand on bare skin. She closed her eyes, let her forehead rest against the door, let the cool varnish press against her temple. "You're the realest thing I've felt in years." She said it before she could stop it, the confession tumbling out raw and unguarded, and she felt her cheeks flush hot in the dark.
The silence that followed was different—charged, alive, breathing. She could hear his breathing now, measured, deliberate, like he was counting seconds to keep himself from saying something. Her palm was slick against the wood, her heart hammering—no, it was his, she could feel it through the grain, a low thrum that matched her own.
"Rosalie." Her name, spoken like a prayer. "What are you doing here? To Blackwater Hill." A pause. "To me."
She bit her lip—hard, the sharp pain grounding her. "I don't know." Her voice cracked on the last word. "I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what I want." She pressed her forehead harder into the wood, the pressure building behind her eyes. "I just know that when you touched my shoulder, something in me—" She stopped, swallowed. "Something broke. Or something woke up. I can't tell the difference."
His hand moved again—a slow drag, the sound of his palm traveling up the wood, stopping where her hand must be on the other side. She could almost feel the heat through the grain, the ghost of his fingers matching hers, palm to palm, an inch of cheap wood between them.
"I'm not supposed to want this," he said, his voice barely audible, the words pressed against the door. "I'm not supposed to want anything. I made promises."
"To who?"
A long pause. The house settled around them, the old wood groaning, the wind brushing against the window at the end of the hall. When he spoke again, his voice was raw, stripped of restraint. "To myself. To God. To a life I chose."
"And now?"
She felt his hand press harder against the door—a firm, deliberate pressure that made the wood creak. "Now I don't know what I chose anymore."
She slid her hand down the wood. Slow. Deliberate. Her fingers traced the grain, following the invisible path his had taken moments ago, and when she reached the place where his warmth still clung to the door, she stopped. Her palm settled flat, pressing into the faint heat he'd left behind, and for a breath she felt him—not through the wood, but through the air, the way his stillness shifted on the other side.
The creak of his hand against the grain answered her. A matching pressure, aligned with hers, palm to palm through an inch of cheap pine. She heard his exhale—long, uneven, like he'd been waiting for this exact contact and hadn't known it until now.
"Elias."
His name came out softer than she'd intended. A whisper pressed into the varnish. She felt the vibration of his answer through the wood, a low sound that might have been her name or might have been a breath catching—she couldn't tell, and it didn't matter. What mattered was the heat spreading from her palm up her arm, pooling in her chest, making her fingers curl against the grain.
"I can feel you," she said, her voice cracking. "Right here. Through the wood." She pressed harder, the edge of the door biting into her palm. "Is that crazy?"
His hand shifted—a slow drag upward, his fingers finding the same spot hers had just vacated, and then pressing down. The door trembled under the pressure. "No," he said, his voice rough, barely audible. "It's the only thing that's made sense in years."
She closed her eyes. The dark behind her lids was the same as the dark in the hallway—only warmer, filled with the shape of him. She let her forehead rest against the wood, let her breath fog the varnish, let the sound of his breathing fill the space between her ribs.
"What do we do now?" she whispered. The question hung in the air, fragile as glass, and she felt him hold his breath on the other side of it.
His hand moved again—not a retreat, not an advance, just a settling. A palm pressed flat, the pressure even, deliberate. She matched it. The door was the only thing holding them apart, and it felt thinner than it had a minute ago, the grain blurring into warmth, the space between them collapsing into a single point of contact.
His voice came through the wood, low and raw: "I don't know." A pause. Then, softer: "But I don't want to walk away."
She felt the words in her chest, in the ache behind her ribs, in the way her hand trembled against the door. She pressed her forehead harder into the wood, let the pressure build behind her eyes, and didn't let herself pull back.
"Then don't," she said, her voice steady even as her hand shook. "Stay."
The silence that followed was alive—charged, breathing, waiting. She felt his hand press harder against the door, and then, slowly, she heard his forehead meet the wood on his side—a soft thud, a surrender, the sound of a man choosing to stay.
She leaned closer, her breath fogging the varnish, and pressed her lips to the wood exactly where she’d heard his forehead meet it. The grain was cool and smooth under her mouth. She tasted the faint, bitter tang of old polish.
On the other side, the silence changed. It wasn’t broken; it deepened, like a breath held underwater.
She stayed there, her mouth against the door, her eyes closed. The pressure was a point of pure focus—the cool wood, the warmth of her own breath bouncing back, the ghost of his skin an inch away. Her lips parted, just enough to feel the texture.
His hand shifted against the grain. A slow drag downward, then back up, until his palm covered the same spot from his side. She felt the vibration of the movement through the wood, a low hum against her mouth.
“Rosalie.” Her name wasn’t a question this time. It was a surrender.
She didn’t answer. She let her forehead rest beside her lips, her cheek pressed flat against the door. Her heart was a frantic, trapped thing beating against her ribs, against the wood, against the place where his hand was.
“I can feel your breath,” he whispered, his voice rough, carved from the dark. “Through the crack.”
She exhaled, deliberately, letting the warm air seep through the narrow gap at the door’s edge. A confession in a breath.
His answer was a sound—a low, broken thing that was half a groan, half a prayer. The door trembled as his weight settled against it, as if he’d leaned his whole body into the wood.
Her hand slid down from where it had been pressed beside her head, her fingers finding the cool brass of the doorknob. She didn’t turn it. She just held it, her thumb rubbing a slow circle over the smooth metal.
“Elias.”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Open it.” The words were gritted out, strained. “If you open it, I won’t…” He stopped. The rest of the sentence hung in the air between them, heavier than the door.
She turned her head, her lips brushing the wood again. “You won’t what?”
“I won’t be able to walk away.”