A Ride Home - Short Story

Some nights feel larger than they are.
Not because something happens, but because something almost does.
This is a short story about being in between: places, decisions, years.
About the quiet weight of a ride home, and the moment before the door opens.
✨ ✨ ✨

She stood in the street looking for the car she ordered.
It was a cold night.
She hadn’t planned to feel like a woman that day.
It happened accidentally.

Her hair behaved. That alone felt suspicious.
She wore something kind to her body,
As if the body belonged to someone she respected but didn’t know well.

The building she lived in smelled like old apologies.
The view was a pile of things no one wanted anymore.
She told herself she was temporary. Everything was temporary.

The car arrived too clean for her life.
He asked if she minded the cigarette.
“No, enjoy your cigarette,” she said, and smiled.

She noticed his hands,
Hands that didn’t grab, didn’t rush, didn’t announce intention.

For a moment, no longer than a traffic light, she imagined him inside her apartment.
Not the apartment as it was, but as it could pretend to be for one night.
She imagined her body being approached without explanation.

She almost didn’t speak.
The words sat behind her teeth, heavy and unreasonable, like a request made in the wrong language.

When the car stopped, when the engine softened into silence, she felt the old familiar ending approaching, the polite thank you, the door closing, the erasure.

She didn’t want the erasure tonight.
She stayed seated a second longer than necessary.

“Can I ask you something strange?”
Her voice surprised her by sounding steady.

He turned. Present.
“That depends,” he said, half-smiling. “On how strange.”

She gestured vaguely upward, toward the building that had never looked worse than it did in that moment.
“I don’t want to go upstairs alone tonight.”

Silence.
The good kind.
The kind that thinks before it answers.

He studied her, not her body exactly, but the way she occupied it.
“Are you safe?” he asked.
“Yes.” It mattered that she said it first.
“Please don’t ask why, she said to herself.

“And this is something you want?” he said.
Just that.
She nodded. Once.

He exhaled, as if making room for the decision.
“Okay,” he said. “We can go up. But if either of us changes our mind, we stop.”
She smiled, not because she was happy, but because she was respected.

The apartment apologised for itself before she could.
The light was too honest. The walls are too thin.
The window framed garbage like a still life of defeat.
She waited for him to notice.
He didn’t comment.
He took off his shoes.
That alone felt intimate.

They sat at opposite ends of the couch.
Their knees eventually touched, unintentionally.
She noticed the warmth before the meaning.

When he kissed her behind her left ear,
It wasn’t hunger first.
It was permission.

She looked at him, clenched her hands into a fist, and closed her eyes.
She didn’t disappear in the moment the way she feared she would.
She stayed inside herself.
She felt her body being responded to, not taken.
Time loosened its grip.
Nothing had to be proven.
It wasn’t salvation.
It was… enough.

Later,
much later…
She sat wrapped in a blanket that wasn’t romantic, but was clean.

“What’s your name?” she asked.
He answered.
He grabbed a cigarette and was about to light it.
She held his hands and said, “Please don’t smoke here.”
“Alright. Sorry,” he said.
“…Thank you,” she said.
He smiled.
They stared at each other for a moment.
She was memorising his face.

She walked to her vanity and grabbed a bracelet with an Ankh -the key of life- something she wasn’t sure she still believed in.
She handed it to him.
“It will look nice on you.”
He smiled and thanked her with his eyes.
They sat silently.

She realised she never left the car.

“Is this the building?” he asked.
She said yes.
Her voice came out polite, almost cheerful, like someone who hadn’t been rehearsing endings all day.
She handed him the money and, out of habit more than care, told him to turn back from the next street, it wasn’t paved well, the garbage piled up, and the car would suffer for it.

He thanked her.
A genuine smile. The kind that didn’t linger long enough to become anything else.

The door opened.
Cold air.
Reality.
She stepped out.
And then,
as if time folded on itself…

She turned back to him.
“Can I ask you something strange?”

He tilted his head, amused, not alarmed.
“It depends,” he said, half-smiling. “On how strange.”
She smiled. A small, tired smile.
“I just want a cigarette.”
He laughed softly, relieved by the simplicity of it.
“Of course.”
He handed it to her like it was nothing.
Like it didn’t carry weight.
Their fingers almost touched.
Almost.

She thanked him and watched him drive away.
She climbed the stairs slowly.
Grabbed the key to her apartment and opened the door.

She walked to her bedroom and undressed.
Clothes fell where they landed.
Her body looked unfamiliar in the mirror, not because it had changed, but because she hadn’t been looking at it lately.

She wrapped herself in a clean blanket, tight, as if to keep herself from unravelling completely.
She walked to the kitchen and lit the cigarette from the stove.
Then walked to the window.
Garbage below.
Sky above.
The moon was there,
not generous, not cruel.
Just present.
She didn’t speak to it out loud.
Her eyes did the talking.

They filled without drama.
Tears that didn’t ask permission.
Tears that didn’t explain themselves.
Is this how the year begins?
Just an observation.

She smoked slowly, like someone counting time instead of minutes.
When the cigarette ended, she closed the window.
The blanket slipped from her shoulders and pooled on the floor like something that tried to help and failed.
She didn’t pick it up.
She walked naked to the bed.
Just… as she was.

She slipped under the covers, the fabric cool against her skin, and stared at the ceiling.
It was New Year’s Eve.
Or rather,
It was.
The new year had already begun without asking if she was ready.

She thought of her life, but not in order.
Not as a story.
As fragments.
Rooms.
Hands.
Moves she didn’t plan.

Eventually, she reached for her phone.
She opened an app. Typed: I can’t sleep.
Nothing answered.
She waited.
The app closed.

So she played a video, something familiar. Something that didn’t require a response.
Her cats curl beside her.
Warm. Breathing.
She falls asleep like that.
Just… held.

The alarm rang the next day.
She silenced it.

It rang again.
She snoozed it. Again. And again.

Sleep won.

When she finally opened her eyes, the light was wrong.
Too orange. Too low.
It was sunset.

The day had almost finished without her.
But she didn’t rush to meet it.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Author’s Note:

This piece was written during a period of transition and emotional exhaustion. It is not a confession, nor a fantasy fulfilled, but an observation of how desire, loneliness, and dignity sometimes coexist in quiet, unexpected ways.

About Me

I’m Heidi, a singer, performing artist, storyteller, and beauty content creator sharing honest routines, ingredient breakdowns, and simple wellness rituals. I love exploring beauty, mental health, travel, and the quiet habits that keep us grounded on and off the stage. My writing comes from real-life experience: touring, concerts, airports, green rooms, and all the messy, magical moments in between. This blog blends research, storytelling, and cruelty-free product recommendations with a performer’s heart.

If you’d like to wander deeper into my world, visit my home page → https://heidivox.com/