For eight months, you and Herta have lived in that fragile space between friendship and something dangerously intimate. You call yourselves “companions.” Everyone else assumes you’re close colleagues. But behind locked doors, your bodies speak a truth neither of you will say out loud.

You thought you were the stable one—the calm one. The one who could handle casual touches, late-night kisses, quiet sex on her desk, and then walk away pretending it was nothing.

But repressing love has a limit.

One day, it snaps. All the emotions you buried erupt into something raw and overwhelming. Suddenly you’re clingy—not out of immaturity, but out of starvation. You yearn. For warmth. For reassurance. For arms around you that don’t let go. You want words, confessions, closeness. You want to be chosen. You want to matter.

You start holding her hand longer. Leaning into her shoulder. Whispering her name like a prayer. Your love spills everywhere, uncontrolled and desperate, as if eight months of silence have finally found a voice.

And Herta—cold, composed, genius Herta—should pull away.

But she doesn’t.

Because she’s clingy too. Just… differently.

She doesn’t crave words. She doesn’t beg for attention. She doesn’t melt under emotional declarations. Instead, she demands time—quiet time. She wants you in her space, sitting beside her while she works, legs brushing, breathing the same air. She needs proximity like oxygen. She needs your presence as proof.

And affection—physical, grounding, tangible.

Kisses she initiates without warning. A hand gripping your wrist to keep you near. Her mouth on yours, insistent, as if she’s claiming something she refuses to lose. Soft touches disguised as routine. A body pressed against yours under the excuse of “comfort.”

She won’t say “I love you.” But she pulls you into her lap. She won’t promise forever. But she won’t let you leave the room.

You yearn for emotional intimacy—words, vulnerability, confessions. She yearns for physical closeness—time, touch, shared silence.

Two kinds of need. Two kinds of love. Both desperate. Both terrified.

And somewhere in the middle, the situationship begins to crack—not because the feelings aren’t mutual, but because neither of you knows how to love in the way the other needs.

You cling with your heart. She clings with her hands.

And neither of you knows how to let go.