Life Story. Part 1 (His)

I wore white because I thought it made things simpler. White felt like a decision that didn’t need defending. A clean argument. A way to say: I am not complicated, even when I was.

I arrived early. Too early.
I stood at the top of the golden stairs pretending to read the placard by the entrance, though I had already read it twice. I scanned faces in the way people do when they don’t want to look like they are scanning.

I was looking for black.
I didn’t know that yet.

I noticed her before I was sure it was her.
She stood still in a way that made the crowd move around her. Black held her—not tightly, but with familiarity. Like a language she spoke without translating.

I remember thinking: She doesn’t look like someone waiting.

Then I saw the ribbon.

It was green, threaded through her hair as if it had always belonged there. Red cherries hid inside it, revealing themselves only when she moved. The braid fell down her back with intention, not carelessness. I noticed where it stopped. I noticed where it didn’t.

I wondered, briefly, what it meant to choose a color on purpose.

I adjusted my watch without realizing I was doing it. I bought it because it carried too many colors to be respectable. Pink, blue, yellow stitched together like they refused to agree. I liked that it didn’t match the rest of me. I liked that it told the truth before I did.

When her eyes met mine, she smirked.

Not a smile.
A smirk.

And in that moment, something in me loosened.
The part that had been performing. The part that had practiced sentences on the walk over.

She saw me see her.

I thought: Don't fuck this up.