Then, “Did we leave?”
“Yeah. We moved away. Built something for ourselves. It’s hard, but it’s ours.”
“And we finally went to the gym, huh?”
“Yeah,” I grinned. “Turns out, we play rugby now.”
She choked on a laugh. “We WHAT?”
“Yeah. It’s insane. But we love it.”
I met my younger self for coffee this morning.
“So, did we figure it out?” she asked.
I laughed. “No. But we’re getting better at pretending we did.”
She frowned, stirring sugar into a cup she wouldn’t drink. “And the dreams? Journalism, storytelling, understanding people?”
“And… being gay?”
I smiled. “Yeah. We said it out loud. Turns out, it didn’t ruin us.”
“Did we fall in love?”
“We did.” I exhaled. “Had a girlfriend. Got our heart broken. Survived.”
She took that in, nodding slowly.