Chapter 3: The First Glance
1192 Words
The air was bitter and the sky could have been labeled appropriately as New York by an
unseasonably cold afternoon. John Snow was most comfortable with skyscrapers and
boardrooms and rarely, if ever, took any interest in community events. But he was, standing at
the edge of a bustling community center on the Lower East Side, more out of place here than
he'd ever been in his own city. My colleague made a point of attending, not so much because I
was allowed to do so, but because supporting SnowCorp symbolizes positive optics, extending
local initiatives. However, if he were being honest with himself, he wasn’t there for the
company. Not this time.
Looking around he found her, Emma Brooks, skimming through a crowd of families with a
warm smile on her face. Sesh was enough beautiful, but her beauty was something deeper than
beauty like that. But the way she would bend down to listen sincerely to a young mother’s
concerns, the way that she would hold a child’s hand and laugh with them like they’d known
each other all their lives. She was radiance, definitely not from makeup or nice clothes, but from
her authentic kindness and compassion. John had always believed that in a world like that, the
only lights were from success and wealth, and she was one.
John was watching her and his usual confidence began to fade; a strange pang stirring in him.
She was a woman, apparently, with no notion of ambition for material wealth, no evidence of
striving for a material end that preoccupied his world, and yet she had the look of somebody who
had accomplished everything. Her joy was in the small things, in the small connections she made
with all the people around her, with all that she touched; and it found him uncharacteristically
captivated.
She heard a pair of eyes on her and glanced up to see John. Before her, surprise flickered in her
eyes, before she smiled at him gently, warmly. It was a smile, a simple smile, a smile with no
guile or hidden intention, something he, for some reason, couldn’t explain. He couldn’t
remember anyone smiling at him like this before, with this honesty, no calculation present. She
waved but gestured for him to come over.
His feet moved even though he was hesitant, out of his element almost and almost following her
feet. Now, as he was coming up to her she greeted him pleasantly, “Well, this is a surprise.” I
didn’t expect to find you here, I thought.”
Scratching the back of his neck he chuckled, a bit awkwardly. “Yeah, well... I certainly didn’t
think I’d be here.” He stood still, looking her in the face. “So I guess it’s good to get out of my
comfort zone now and then.”
It looked as if Emma’s eyes twinkled with a look of knowing. “Being thirty stories up and in
your own comfort zone, with the entire city to see it.”
A little taken aback, he smiled. “Something like that.” He looked over the ‘lively’ scene around –
people laughing, kids running, volunteers shooting food and supplies. The world was chaotic,
imperfect, and, for some reason, unbelievably warm—a warmth he didn’t feel on his own at all.
This... this is what you do?”
She gave a soft reply, 'No,' all the time.' “They’re the ones that keep me doing what I do.”
Everyone here has a struggle, a story. I think there’s a beauty in that honesty, they’re real, raw,
don’t you?”
He didn’t know how to respond. He wanted to spew something smart, something cutting, but his
words never left his lips. He went a slightly different approach saying “I don’t think I’ve ever
really... thought of it that way.”
With a trace of curiosity in her gaze, Emma looked at him. “Maybe you should.” Her tone gave
no judgment just a gentle encouragement, as if she were asking him to take a glimpse at her
world, to give him a view that was so completely foreign to his." Then, 'You know,' she says,
'not everything of value in life has dollars to sell or buy.' Some things are just... felt.”
And her words sat between them, and they stood in silence, in the foreign space of how close
they felt. As the CEO, mighty, surrounded by wealth and luxury, how petty and exposed to feel
in the company of a woman who had yet to be afflicted with these things, but who seemed, in
their absence, to have everything.
He began, ‘Emma... how... how do you find happiness in this all?' He gestured around, at the
chipped paint on the walls, the people who, unlike him, were clawing to make ends meet. “How
can you be so... content?”
Emma’s smile lightened and she reached out, tugging on his arm. s**t, that was such a small
gesture, but it sent some kind of a jolt through him, an unexpected warmth spreading from the
point of contact. ‘It’s not about what you have,’ she said to him, looking up at him through deep
eyes. It’s about who you really are, it’s about what you’re actually willing to give. Happiness
isn’t something you get; happiness is something you give. That’s where true wealth lies,” and if
you ask me.”
That resonated with something he had buried, a vague memory of when things were less
successful, his own childhood before he'd become successful before he'd built walls around his
heart to protect himself from just the vulnerabilities that his presence so exploited. He looked
away, some strange sense of inadequacy coursing through his head, as if, despite all his money,
he was the one who should have been left with nothing.
The crowd around them receded into the background, and in that moment there were only the
two of them, standing in the middle of what he didn’t understand, but that he now badly did. He
coughed to clear his throat of this tightness in his chest. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like
you, Emma,’ he said, his voice so small he barely could be heard.
Emma’s eyes softened. “It could be a good thing, then.” Instead, she gave him another smile, the
kind she knew could see right through him. “It could be that we all came here to learn from each
other.”
Their gazes locked as there was a shift within himself, he couldn’t name. He’d spent his whole
life chasing after wealth and power and achieving success, and it didn’t matter — any of it — in
that moment. All he sought to know was more about her way of seeing the world that made him
feel alive for what he hadn’t felt in years.
He wasn't the powerful CEO or the billionaire with an empire anymore - for the first time in a
long time. He was just in Emma’s presence... John. That felt like enough, and somehow.
- Writer
