For weeks, we had hidden safely behind songs, messages, and late-night conversations. But as the elevator doors closed behind me, I realized there was no more distance left for words to hide behind.

We almost met a hundred times before we ever did. In places that now feel too close to be coincidence, and too distant to be fate. By the time our lives finally intersected, everything was already complicated—as if timing had waited until there was something to lose. Some stories don’t begin with intention. They begin quietly, in the space between what is allowed and what is felt. And not everything that finds you is meant to stay—but some things are meant to change you anyw

He asked if he could see me. I didn’t stop him.