Promises We Made at Seventeen
We looked like people who hadn’t learned yet how much loving could ask of you.
I almost deleted it.
Instead, I locked the screen and went for a run hard, fast, punishing. I needed the burn. The exhaustion. The reminder that my body could still carry weight without collapsing.
When I got back, lungs on fire, phone buzzing with missed messages, I knew what I had to do.
I had to talk to someone who wasn’t her.
That evening, I met my older cousin Daniel for coffee. He was the closest thing I had to a blueprint for adult love married, grounded, unromantic in the best possible way.
Bab Populer