What Are You Doing…For the Rest of Your Life?

Even if I imagined the inexplicable jolt between us.

Even if I presumed the feeling was mutual.

Even if I never saw him again.

Even if the flash-bang-recognition of a soulmate was as far as it went:

It would’ve been enough.

Enough to restore my belief in second chapters.

In encores of happy endings.

But the chapter doesn’t end there.

It picks up a few nights later over dinner at Gramercy Tavern.

Gathers steam at Flatiron Lounge.

Leaves off—reluctantly—on a Chelsea street corner halfway between our apartments.

Collides again, after a week of text flurries.

Under the green-gray sky of an impending hurricane.

We ride out the storm in The Standard’s dimly lit dining room.

Finishing each other sentences.

And saying words people just don’t say on second dates.

Making plans people just don’t make on second dates.

Unless.

Unless they’re prepared to live presently.

Fearlessly.

Unless they’re prepared to not blink the next morning.

When the process of introduction to each other’s world begins.

Unflinchingly.

And in three languages.