rooftop, 2024

It’s 2024 and I’m on a rooftop bar overlooking the city. This was before I’d been scarred too badly by things, and I still had a lightness in my eyes that you can’t fake. My friends and I were taking up the better half of the roof, scattered across couches and high-top tables. This was nothing like our old haunt, but we claimed it as our own like we usually did. It was June, and the stars were nowhere to be seen, but the lights of the city glinted back at us, casting everything in an orange glow that made everyone look prettier than they really were. Or maybe that was the alcohol, drinking always made things nicer than they really were.

I was seated on the couch, legs crossed under me, my sandals abandoned on the floor. My hair was very long back then, falling halfway down my back, and I think I wore it natural that night. I was in a long sundress and wearing too many bracelets. I was pleasantly drunk off sauvignon blanc and would’ve been content staying seated on that couch the rest of the evening until he walked up to me, grabbed my hand, and suddenly I was gone. Wine glass left on the table, shoes where I’d left them, his hand in mine. Always trying to get me to dance with him, which I happily obliged. A Sade song was playing, I think, which made me feel like I was in Sex and the City. My friends joined around us, making it less about the two of us and more about everyone as a whole, which I didn’t mind.

“To sit alone or with a few friends, half-drunk under a full moon, you just understand how lucky you are; it’s a story you can’t tell. It’s a story you almost, by definition, can’t share. I’ve learned in real time to look at those things and realize: I just had a really good moment.”
— Anthony Bourdain

The song ended and everyone scattered like ants. To the bathroom, to the bar, to smoke a cigarette. It was just him and me left, my arms hung at my sides and I had nothing to say, nothing to offer. He walked over to me and brushed my hair behind my ear, saying nothing and everything all at once, and it drove me fucking insane. I took a deep breath and looked up at him. He was so beautiful. So beautiful that I knew I would spend the rest of my life trying to recreate him through art. Trying to capture his aura, his laugh, his mannerisms. Down to my bones, he was the love of my life. How cruel of the world not to make me his.

I broke out of his trance and excused myself, just to find my breath again. I went over to Nick and asked for something to smoke, then leaned against the railing and took in the city beyond us. Nick brushed his shoulder against mine and gave me a weak smile. He knew what was bothering me without either of us saying it out loud.

And it’s funny, my world back then was smaller than it is now, but I’ve never met someone who made the world feel as big as it did when he was around me.