I shoulda looked up in the sky at first.
Now I can see it in her eyes. Fireworks! — Drake
I‘d been messaging with him all night from a rooftop party. My face glowed as I stared into the screen at his texts. A man nearby was trying to get my attention, but that was an implausible battle.
I walked into the bathroom and stared into the mirror. Is it possible I could already love August after only a few days?
I snapped a picture in the bathroom mirror and sent it to him with the text, “Thinking of you.”
I walked back out of the bathroom and back out to the patio chair where my friend Tammy was sitting.
“Who has you smiling like that,” he asked jokingly.
“Her new boyfriend!” Michelle, a friend, yelled across the patio.
I blushed, but luckily the glow of string lights and moonshine didn’t highlight my reddish hue. I dropped my chin and replied to a text August sent, “I’m on my way. Do you need me to come and get you?”
“No. Driving now,” August replied.
My heart raced as I quickly said my good-byes and requested an Uber home. In the Uber, I stared out the window thinking with anticipation about what we would do upon him arriving. Should I have sex with him? We had sex the first night, should I slow everything down? Were we moving too fast? Was this normal to feel so much?
As the Uber pulled up, I stepped out into the fall breeze and took a deep breath. I waited since he mentioned he was almost there. Standing, I remember staring into the stars from that horseshoe-shaped driveway. I whispered to the moon, “Please let this be what I wished for.”
As August walked toward me he said, “Wow, you are beautiful. Look at you.” He took my hand and spun me around. For a moment, I felt the world stop and the moon smile. My heart melted in the palm of his hand under the stars. A love, so present that I couldn’t know more than that moment, a love so commanding that I felt an explosion in my soul of a feeling mysteriously, wonderfully unique. One of those moments you know doesn’t happen twice.
Inside the apartment, August kissed me and I laughed before pulling away to say, “I’m not like the girls you date, this is not your type.”
“You are my type,” as he pulled me in, kissing my lips long and slow.
I lost myself in the sparkle of his eyes, the touch of his hand, the feeling of his lips upon mine. Falling so deeply, I could only hope that he would be there to catch me. I was on the moon and I knew the stars.
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This post was previously published on Medium.
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Photo credit: Leonardo Miranda on Unsplash