She pressed her forehead to the grain. The dried blood crackled against her palm as it flattened again, the wound pulling with a sting that ran up her wrist. His exhale came through the wood — warm, controlled, a slow release that she matched with her own, her chest rising and falling in his rhythm. The silence thickened until it felt like a third body in the hallway, standing between them, breathing with them.
She counted her heartbeats. Four. Eight. Twelve. The light beneath the door held steady, a thin gold line that didn't waver, didn't flicker. Neither did he. Neither did she.
Her palm remembered the outline it had left. She could feel it drying now, the blood tacky against her skin, the shape of her hand pressed into the wood like a signature she couldn't take back.
She didn't know why she was still here. The word Goodnight had landed like a period at the end of a sentence, but she'd refused to close the book. Her thumb found the edge of the wound and pressed, a small sharpness to hold herself in the moment.
On the other side of the door, she imagined him standing the way he'd stood behind the bar — hands flat, head slightly tilted, watching a door the way he watched her on stage. She wondered if his eyes were closed. She wondered if his hand was reaching for the wood too.
She bent her knees, just slightly, letting her weight lean into the door. The wood was warm where his heat bled through. Solid. Unmoving. She could have been pressing against a wall.
"Adrian."
Her lips brushed the grain when she said it, so soft she wasn't sure she'd spoken at all. The word hung in the air between them, small and unfinished. The light beneath the door didn't change. His breathing, if he was breathing, had gone silent.
The silence had texture now. Rough as the grain beneath her forehead, warm as the breath she'd matched with his, thick as the blood drying between her fingers. She could taste it at the back of her throat—copper and dust and the faint hint of his cologne, seeping through the wood like it had been waiting for her to notice.
She didn't knock again. Didn't speak. Her hand stayed flat, the wound a raw line against her palm, and she let herself feel the small pulse of blood that still welled at its edges. A slow seep. A reminder that she'd cut herself on something she couldn't see, and that the wound kept opening every time she pressed too hard against a door that wouldn't give.
The light beneath the door didn't flicker. Didn't dim or brighten. It held steady, a thin yellow line that separated her side of the hallway from his, and she found herself counting the seconds between her heartbeats. One. Two. Three. Four. The numbers blurred. She lost count before she reached ten.
Her forehead was damp against the wood. Not sweat—condensation, maybe, or the heat bleeding off his side of the door meeting the cool of the hallway air. She lifted it slightly, just enough to feel the grain imprint pressed into her skin, and then settled back down, her breath fogging a small circle on the dark oak.
She could feel him through the wood. Not his movement—he wasn't moving—but his weight, his stillness, the way he occupied the space on the other side like a held breath. She'd never felt a man's silence before, not like this. Not as something that pressed back.
Her thumb moved of its own accord, tracing the edge of the grain. A slow arc, the dried blood flaking beneath her touch, leaving a faint smear on the wood. She watched it darken the line between two planks, watched it soak into the grain like it belonged there, and she didn't wipe it away.
"I'm still here."
The words came out before she'd decided to say them. Flat. Quiet. Not an accusation and not a plea—just a fact, laid against the wood like her handprint, like the blood smear, like everything she'd left on this door since she'd first knocked. She felt the vibration of her own voice travel through the wood into her forehead, into her palm, and then fade into the silence that swallowed everything.
The light beneath the door flickered. Just once. A dimming, so brief she might have imagined it, and then it held steady again.
Her breath caught in her chest, not from hope or fear, but from the sheer weight of the moment—the knowledge that he'd heard her, that he'd responded in the only way he could without opening the door, and that she'd felt it. Felt him. Through wood and silence and the impossible distance of a few inches.
She pressed her palm harder against the door, the wound tearing just slightly, a fresh heat blooming against her skin. The sting was clean. Sharp. It pulled her back into her body, out of the fog of waiting, and she let herself feel it—the cut, the blood, the warmth of his side of the door meeting hers.
"I don't know what you want me to do."
The confession fell out of her like something she'd been holding too long. Not whispered. Not broken. Just quiet, and real, and aimed at the wood between them. Her forehead was still pressed to the grain, her hand still flat, her blood still drying in the spaces where the door met the frame, and she waited for an answer she wasn't sure would come.
A long beat. Two. Three. The silence thickened until it was almost visible, a presence that filled the hallway and pressed against her lungs. She felt his exhale before she heard it—a shift in the air, a warmth that seemed to travel through the wood and settle against her skin—and then she heard it, soft and controlled, a single breath that said everything and nothing.
Her eyes closed. She matched it. Inhale. Hold. Release. Her hand stayed flat on the door, her wound open, her body pressed against the barrier between them, and she let the silence do its work.
The light beneath the door held steady. Still yellow. Still thin. Still the only proof that he was there, on the other side, breathing the same air she was breathing, separated by a thickness of wood and the weight of every word neither of them had spoken.
Her fingers curled against the grain, just slightly, the pads of her nails catching on the rough surface. She felt the dried blood crack beneath them, felt the fresh wound pull, felt the heat of his side of the door bleeding into her palm.
She didn't pull away.
She let her hand slide down the door, the wound dragging across the grain like a needle through fabric. Fresh blood welled from the tear, warm against her palm, and left a dark trail on the wood—a crooked line that followed the descent of her fingers. She felt every ridge, every knot, every roughness that caught the open skin and pulled. The sting was clean. Sharp. It anchored her to the moment, to the door, to the weight of her own body leaning into wood that wouldn't give.
The smear was wet at first, a glistening ribbon against the dark oak, before the wood soaked it in and left only a darker stain. She watched it grow beneath her hand as she moved, watched the blood fill the grain like ink spreading across paper. Her thumb caught on the edge of a knot and she paused, letting the pressure hold, letting the wound open a little wider. A fresh bead welled up and rolled down the side of her hand, warm against her wrist, before disappearing into the cuff of her sleeve.
She stopped moving when her hand reached the level of her hip. Her palm was flat against the door, the smear running from above her fingers down to the heel of her hand, a dark crescent that marked the arc of her descent. She didn't lift her hand away. Didn't check to see how much blood she'd left behind. She just held there, her fingers curled slightly against the wood, her wound pressed into the silence like a confession she'd already made.
The wood was warm where her hand had been. Cool where it hadn't. She could feel the boundary between heat and cold against her palm, the line where her touch had bled into the grain and where it hadn't yet reached. She traced the edge of that line with her thumb, a slow arc that smeared more blood across the boundary, blurring it until she couldn't tell where she'd touched and where she hadn't.
On the other side of the door, nothing. No shift. No breath. No movement that she could hear or feel. Just the same heavy stillness that had been there since she'd first knocked—a silence so complete it felt like a held breath, like the entire building was waiting for something that might never come.
She pressed her forehead harder against the wood, the grain imprinting into her skin, and let her eyes close. The world narrowed to the sensations under her palm: the rough oak, the wet slide of blood, the faint pulse of the wound with every heartbeat. She could feel her own blood moving through her, could feel it welling and pooling and drying against her skin, and she let herself feel it without trying to stop it.
Her hand was starting to shake. Not much—just a tremor, fine as a wire, running through her fingers and into the wood. She didn't know if Adrian could feel it on his side, if the vibration traveled through the door and into his palm the way his had traveled through hers. She didn't know if he was close enough to feel it. She didn't know if he was still standing there at all.
The light beneath the door held steady. Yellow. Thin. Unchanged. She stared at it through the slit of her half-open eyes, watching the way it pooled on the floorboards, watching the way her shadow fell across it when she shifted her weight. The light didn't flicker. Didn't dim. It just stayed, steady as his silence, steady as her hand on the wood, steady as the blood drying between them.
She counted her heartbeats again. One. Two. Three. The numbers came slower this time, dragged out by the weight of the silence, by the ache spreading through her palm and up her wrist. Four. Five. The rhythm was the only measure of time left—a clock she couldn't see, a pulse she could feel but not control. Six. Seven.
Her hand was lower on the door now, the smear above it already darkening as the blood dried. She could smell it—copper, sharp and metallic, mixing with the wood polish and his cologne. The scent clung to her skin, to the door, to the air between them. She didn't wipe it away. She left it there, like everything else she'd pressed into this door tonight.
The silence didn't break. The light didn't change. Adrian didn't move. And she stayed, her hand pressed low on the door, her blood drying in the grain, her weight still leaning into the wood that separated them, waiting for something she couldn't name but couldn't stop wanting.