Gold Digger – Story 25 – ALMOST

I should explain where I’ve been.

Dating Adam.

Actually dating him – not acquisition-timeline dating, not dinner-frequency-management dating. The real version. The version where you text each other about nothing in particular and walk somewhere on a Sunday afternoon and he holds your hand without making a moment of it and you let him.

Walks. Coffee. A film he’d already seen that he watched again without mentioning it.

Kisses that started small and stayed that way and felt like – something.

Something I was choosing not to overanalyze.

The spreadsheet stayed green.

I was doing well.

He asked me to come over on a Friday.

His place.

I knew what that meant.

I mean – I knew what it could mean. What it was probably moving toward. What I had, on some level, decided I was ready for.

I got ready the way I get ready when I’ve decided something.

Not the leather dress. Not the obvious black one.

Something in between. Something that said I’m here without saying I’ve already written the ending.

I took the key out of my coat pocket and looked at it.

Put it in my bag.

Left.

His flat was what I expected.

Good. Considered. Books I recognized on a shelf. Coffee that wasn’t instant. The specific order of someone who respects their own space.

He opened a bottle of wine.

We sat on the sofa and talked about something I can’t remember now because I wasn’t entirely listening I was just – there. In the room. With him.

At some point the talking slowed.

He reached over and pushed my hair back from my face.

Slow.

His hand on my jaw. Gentle. Like he had all the time in the world and wasn’t going to rush any of it.

He kissed me.

Not the corner kisses. Not the goodnight ones.

A real one.

Slow and warm and completely unhurried.

He pulled back just enough to look at me.

Said my name.

Quietly.

The way someone says a name when they mean it.

And I couldn’t breathe.

Not in a good way.

In the way where something underneath your sternum closes like a door and you don’t know why and you can’t explain it and you can’t push through it no matter how much the spreadsheet says you should.

I pulled back.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

He went still.

“I don’t -” I stopped. “I’m not – I’m sorry. I need to go.”

He didn’t push.

Of course he didn’t push.

He nodded slowly. Said it was okay in the voice of someone trying very hard to mean it. Walked me to the door. Kissed me once on the cheek.

“Text me,” he said.

“I will,” I said.

I meant it.

I think.

In the cab I opened Instagram.

Not for any reason.

Just to look at something that wasn’t my own thoughts.

I scrolled.

Sara’s baby. Claire at something corporate. Zoya with the musician.

Then D.

A photo.

Him and the young woman from the pavement.

Same easy laugh. Same close. Him with his arm around her, both of them slightly blurry like someone caught them mid-moment.

The caption:

happy birthday lil sis 🖤

I stared at the screen.

happy birthday lil sis.

I read it twice.

Then a third time.

The cab kept moving.

I put the phone face down on the seat.

The cab moved through the city and I sat there with my coat on and the key in my bag and something I was not going to name sitting very quietly in the middle of my chest.

Spreadsheet status:

Adam → his place. almost. I left. he said it was okay. it wasn’t okay. filed under: I know. 

D → [row does not exist] 

Lil sis. I’m not discussing what that means. – Mila