She never wore the obvious. No cloud of scent announced her arrival, no heavy sweetness clung to her in a way others could notice. She always said she preferred it that way—that her presence didn’t need to be dressed in anything artificial. And yet, when she leaned close, when she brushed against him casually in a crowded room or bent nearer than necessary to hand him something, he found himself breathing in something that didn’t feel chosen, but inevitable.
It wasn’t perfume, not in the bottled sense. It was the faint warmth of her hair after the sun. The fabric of her blouse carrying a memory of her skin beneath. The way her breath seemed to graze the air just seconds before his own. Whatever it was, it lingered. He would catch it later when he was alone, on the sleeve of his shirt, on the collar that had brushed too near her shoulder. And it never faded as quickly as he expected—it stayed, stubborn, haunting, like a reminder of something he had almost but not quite held onto.
The worst part was that he tried to remove it. He washed the shirt, folded it away, yet when he wore it again, the ghost of her presence still hovered faintly in the fabric. It made him restless, as though her absence was a lie, as though she was still here even when she was not. And he wondered if she knew—if she understood that not needing perfume was its own kind of weapon, because what she left behind could never be rinsed away.