DARK LOVE

I moved to Atlanta with a suitcase, a playlist full of 2000s R&B, and a silent vow to change everything. New apartment. New job. New me — or at least, the version of me I hadn’t completely messed up yet. People say when you’re tired of who you’ve become, change your scenery. I’d been a smooth-talking charmer with a revolving door of names and numbers for too long. Something in me craved silence. Stability. Something real — though I’d never say that out loud. I wasn’t looking for love. Hell, I barely believed in it. But then I saw her. It was a Thursday. Late afternoon. The sky was cloudy, the air thick with that Southern summer weight that hugs your skin. I wandered into a quiet café not far from my new place. Earth tones. Soft jazz. Wooden floors that creaked just right. The kind of spot where no one rushed anything. I was scrolling through emails on my phone when the door chimed behind me. I didn’t look up at first. Not until I heard a laugh — soft, feminine, familiar in a way that tugged something old inside me. Then I saw her. She was standing near the counter, asking the barista a question, her voice calm, low, confident. The kind of voice that had grown into itself. She wore a sage green dress that hugged her in all the right places. Gold hoops. Braids piled into a crown. A woman who walked like she knew who she was. And just like that, time folded. Teni. My sister’s best friend back in the day. The girl who used to trail behind us, scribble her name in notebooks, blush when I so much as said “hey.” She had been quiet, awkward, sweet. The kind of girl who carried books and smiled at the floor. But this woman? She was not that girl. She turned — and her eyes landed on me. Only for a second. Then she looked past me like I was no one. I smirked. Oh, so we’re pretending now?