One night wasn't enough

The dress was still on the hanger.

That was how I knew I wasn't going.

Lena had picked it out three weeks ago during one of her ambush shopping trips where I somehow always ended up spending money I didn't plan to spend and agreeing to things I didn't plan to agree to. It was black, fitted, with a neckline that made me feel like a different version of myself. A bolder one. The kind of woman who went to rooftop parties on Friday nights instead of sitting cross legged on her couch with a sketchbook and leftover Chinese food.

I was very much a sketchbook and Chinese food kind of woman.

"Maya." Lena's voice came through my phone speaker with the specific frequency she reserved for when she already knew I was backing out. "Tell me you're dressed."

"I'm dressed," I said, which was technically true. I was wearing a oversized university sweatshirt and socks with little cacti on them.

Silence.

"Maya Donovan."

"Lena."

"If you say you're not coming I will physically come to your apartment and drag you out by your bonnet and I need you to know I am not joking even a little bit."

I looked at the dress. The dress looked back at me.

The thing about Lena was that she was never joking. Not even a little bit. We had been best friends since sophomore year of college and in that time she had dragged me to three parties I didn't want to attend, two concerts I claimed not to like and one very uncomfortable speed dating event that we agreed never to speak of again. Every single time I had been reluctant. Every single time I had been glad she pushed.

That didn't mean I was going to tell her that.

"It's a Friday night," I said, moving to the window and looking out at the Chicago skyline doing what it always did — glittering like it had something to prove. "I have three client briefs due Monday. I have food here. I have my sketchbook. I have everything I need."

"You have everything you need to slowly become a hermit," Lena said. "Maya, when was the last time you went somewhere that wasn't a coffee shop or a client meeting?"

I opened my mouth.

"And before you say the farmers market, that does not count."

I closed my mouth.

She had a point and I resented her deeply for it. The truth was I couldn't actually remember the last time I had done something purely for the sake of doing it. Purely for fun. Purely because I was twenty four years old and living in one of the most alive cities in the world and there was absolutely no reason to spend another Friday watching the hours disappear from the safe predictable quiet of my apartment.

I was good at keeping quiet. I had built my entire life around quietness.

Sometimes I wondered if that was a personality trait or a hiding strategy.

"One hour," Lena said, her voice softening in the way it only did when she actually meant something. "Come for one hour. If you hate it we leave and I'll buy you dumplings and we can watch that documentary about the birds you've been talking about for a month."

"It's about migration patterns and it's genuinely fascinating."

"I know, baby. One hour."

I looked at the dress one more time.

The rooftop was beautiful in the way that made you annoyed you almost didn't come.

String lights ran the length of the space in warm looping lines. The city spread out below us in every direction, all glass and light and that particular Chicago wind that hit you the second you stepped outside and reminded you it was in charge. Music moved through the crowd at a volume that was loud enough to feel but soft enough to still have a real conversation. Someone had set up a bar in the corner and the whole thing felt expensive and effortless in equal measure.

Lena had been glowing for approximately thirty seconds before she disappeared into the crowd to find someone she knew from her PR firm, leaving me standing near the entrance with a drink I'd barely touched and the specific feeling of being at a party alone.

I was fine with alone. Alone was familiar.

I moved to the edge of the rooftop and leaned against the railing, looking out at the city rather than back at the crowd. This was my strategy at events like this. Find the edge. Watch from a comfortable distance. Engage just enough that nobody could accuse you of being antisocial. Leave before it got too late.

It was a good strategy. It had served me well for years.

The problem was the feeling.

It had followed me here the way it always did. That quiet restless unnamed thing that lived somewhere in my chest and surfaced most reliably when everything around me was fine. When nothing was wrong. When by every measurable standard my life was exactly what it was supposed to be.

I had a career I had built myself. An apartment I loved. A brother who would move mountains for me. Two parents who had never once made me feel anything less than cherished. I had Lena, who was currently laughing loudly somewhere behind me and probably already collecting new friends like she always did.

Everything was fine.

So why did fine always feel like it was one size too small?

I lifted my drink and took a slow sip and made a decision to stop thinking about it the way I always made that decision and the way it never actually worked.

The wind shifted.

I don't know what made me turn around. There was no sound that was different from any other sound. No particular movement in my peripheral vision. Just something — some pull I couldn't explain and wouldn't be able to explain later no matter how many times I replayed the moment.

I turned.

And across the rooftop, through the warm light and the moving crowd and all that beautiful noise, a man turned at the exact same moment and looked directly at me.

He was tall. Dark eyed. Unhurried in the way of someone who had never needed to rush for anything in his life. He held his glass loosely and he did not smile. He did not look away. He just looked at me with an expression I couldn't read from this distance and didn't have the vocabulary for even if I could.

My whole body reacted before my brain had the chance to intervene.

Every carefully constructed wall. Every comfortable habit. Every practiced strategy for staying at the edge of things.

Gone.

Just like that.

He still hadn't smiled.

He was still looking.

And God help me, so was I.