The young man was hospitalized after being “pen—” but not in the way anyone expected. His friends joked about it, the nurses whispered about it, and the older woman who visited him every evening simply smiled—because she was the only one who knew what really happened in that quiet apartment the night before.
He had been writing—penning—a letter he never meant to deliver. A confession, really. A confession about her.
About the way she looked at him.
About the way she stepped closer than necessary.
About the way her voice curled around his spine whenever she said his name.
He shouldn’t have been alone with her. Everyone who saw them together could feel the charge between them, that slow burn that made people clear their throats and pretend not to notice. She was older, composed, effortlessly in control of every room she walked into. He was younger, tense, nervous in the way men become when they stand near a woman who understands more than he can say.
That night, she stopped by his place with the excuse of returning a book.
A book he hadn’t even read—because he was too distracted by the scent of her perfume still lingering in its pages.
When he invited her in, she didn’t walk into the living room.
She walked straight toward him.
She saw the letter on the desk before he could hide it.
She picked it up.
She read the first line—
then looked at him with the kind of slow, knowing smirk that makes a man forget every rule his parents taught him.
“Oh,” she whispered, lifting his chin with one finger, “so you were trying to write about me.”
His throat tightened.
His palms sweated.
He tried to speak, but she placed the pen back in his hand and guided his fingers like she was teaching him something intimate—something he had no defense against.
“Then write,” she said softly, standing behind him, her breath at his ear. “Write what you think I do to you.”
And that’s where the problem began.
Because the more she leaned in…
the more she whispered…
the more she let her fingertips drag slowly down his shoulders and along the lines of his back…
the less air he seemed to find.
His heart raced too fast.
His breathing grew shallow.
His legs went weak.
But she didn’t stop.
“Keep going,” she murmured. “You’re almost honest now.”
The pen scratched across the page as he tried to describe what she made him feel—her nearness, her control, the way she stood behind him like a storm disguised as a woman.
And then it happened.
A rush of heat shot through his body.
His vision blurred.
His knees buckled.
She caught him halfway down, whispering, “Breathe, sweetheart,” but he couldn’t.
The next thing he knew, he was waking up in a hospital bed, nurses fussing, friends laughing, and every single person assuming he’d simply fainted because he hadn’t eaten or slept properly.
But when visiting hours came, she appeared at his bedside—calm, elegant, composed as ever. She sat down, crossed her legs slowly, and looked at him like he was still kneeling in front of her desk, pen trembling in his hand.
“You really should take better care of yourself,” she said, voice low enough that only he could hear. “I barely did anything, and you fell apart.”
His ears burned.
His chest tightened again—but in a different way this time.
She touched the inside of his wrist, her thumb brushing the exact spot where his pulse jumped like it was trying to escape.
“When you’re discharged,” she whispered, leaning closer, “you’re going to finish that letter. And this time…”
Her lips curved.
“…you won’t faint before the best part.”
He swallowed hard, because the truth was painfully clear:
He wasn’t hospitalized because he was weak.
He wasn’t hospitalized because of stress.
He wasn’t hospitalized because of the writing.
He was hospitalized because of her—
the way she knew exactly how to corner a young man’s confidence,
how to unsteady his breath with a single sentence,
and how to make his entire body betray him without ever laying claim to more than a whisper and the brush of her fingers.
And as she walked out of the room—slowly, deliberately—
he realized something else:
If she visited him again tomorrow,
he would collapse all over again…
and he wouldn’t mind one bit.
