Mar 2018
I know how I will meet my soulmate: I have gone over it a hundred times, told it to all my friends,
and they all agree.
There will be a club, or a bar, or a party, some dim-lit place with colored lights, cold glasses if we've graduated past solo cups,
I will be there with a friend or two, because I am not an idiot, but we will not hang on each-other like we do now, because we will be a little more like adults.
So I will be alone, when it happens: There will be an *******, like there always is, some man who smells like beer and entitlement,
drunk and leering at me.
And I will scowl, my fists ready at my sides, not a wallflower and not a doormat, words ready on my tipsy lips.
But then there he is, shooting out of nowhere as the ******* reaches for me, the frantic chaos of a fight erupting in the middle of the room as they go at it, lasting until someone shouts loud enough to find a man big enough to throw them both out.
For a moment, I wait as they are hustled out the door, I wait by the window or the door as I can hear the ******* yelling something as his slurred voice fades away, I wait and I look back at my friend who nods to me, her face a puzzle under the colored lights.
"Be careful," she mouths at me and I nod, pulling open the door to let in the night, pulling down my short skirt as I step out onto the sidewalk to see him sitting there on the curb, looking up at the sky.
I sit down beside him and look at him for the first time, his face lit up by the nearby streetlight, the neon signs of cheap restaurants, and he is beautiful and his smile is a permanent smirk and his dark hair is a perfect mess and his eyes are dark like mine and he looks at me and is puzzled.
"Thank you," I say, and then: "Are you okay?"
He turns his head towards me and I can see the blood on his face, his split lip trailing a dark line down his neck, a stripe across his right cheek making him look like some kind of warrior, and his jacket is dark, almost too big for him, for he is not a large man at all, much smaller than the ******* had been.
"It's nothing," he says with a smile, and he looks at me as if he has never seen anyone like me before, and we introduce ourselves and we talk and the stars come out in the narrow strip of sky between the buildings, and when a crazy man lopes down the street, he takes my hand and pulls me to his side, instantly alert.
He is a little drunk, too, and the words pour out of him easily, and he is not too old and not too young, and he traces my skin and when I go in to kiss him without thinking about it, he tastes a little bit like the blood from his lip, and I realize and I say:
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you," and he kisses me again and I make sure to text my friend before I go over to his place, promise her that I will be okay, promise her that I trust this boy with bruised knuckles and a ****** face.
I will be in love with him from that first night, though I will not tell him until he is ready to hear it, and he will not be a simple sort of man to love and live with, but he will be the same boy I have always loved, dark eyes lighting on my face, my partner-in-crime, a little too much and yet exactly enough.
and they all agree.
There will be a club, or a bar, or a party, some dim-lit place with colored lights, cold glasses if we've graduated past solo cups,
I will be there with a friend or two, because I am not an idiot, but we will not hang on each-other like we do now, because we will be a little more like adults.
So I will be alone, when it happens: There will be an *******, like there always is, some man who smells like beer and entitlement,
drunk and leering at me.
And I will scowl, my fists ready at my sides, not a wallflower and not a doormat, words ready on my tipsy lips.
But then there he is, shooting out of nowhere as the ******* reaches for me, the frantic chaos of a fight erupting in the middle of the room as they go at it, lasting until someone shouts loud enough to find a man big enough to throw them both out.
For a moment, I wait as they are hustled out the door, I wait by the window or the door as I can hear the ******* yelling something as his slurred voice fades away, I wait and I look back at my friend who nods to me, her face a puzzle under the colored lights.
"Be careful," she mouths at me and I nod, pulling open the door to let in the night, pulling down my short skirt as I step out onto the sidewalk to see him sitting there on the curb, looking up at the sky.
I sit down beside him and look at him for the first time, his face lit up by the nearby streetlight, the neon signs of cheap restaurants, and he is beautiful and his smile is a permanent smirk and his dark hair is a perfect mess and his eyes are dark like mine and he looks at me and is puzzled.
"Thank you," I say, and then: "Are you okay?"
He turns his head towards me and I can see the blood on his face, his split lip trailing a dark line down his neck, a stripe across his right cheek making him look like some kind of warrior, and his jacket is dark, almost too big for him, for he is not a large man at all, much smaller than the ******* had been.
"It's nothing," he says with a smile, and he looks at me as if he has never seen anyone like me before, and we introduce ourselves and we talk and the stars come out in the narrow strip of sky between the buildings, and when a crazy man lopes down the street, he takes my hand and pulls me to his side, instantly alert.
He is a little drunk, too, and the words pour out of him easily, and he is not too old and not too young, and he traces my skin and when I go in to kiss him without thinking about it, he tastes a little bit like the blood from his lip, and I realize and I say:
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you," and he kisses me again and I make sure to text my friend before I go over to his place, promise her that I will be okay, promise her that I trust this boy with bruised knuckles and a ****** face.
I will be in love with him from that first night, though I will not tell him until he is ready to hear it, and he will not be a simple sort of man to love and live with, but he will be the same boy I have always loved, dark eyes lighting on my face, my partner-in-crime, a little too much and yet exactly enough.
