So the boy from the L train didn't text back, and I'm learning to be okay about it in real time, publicly, like a fool.
It started two weeks ago. Bedford Avenue platform, waiting for the L into the city, and he complimented my coat — this vintage camel number I thrifted in Greenpoint that I will defend with my life. We talked the whole ride. He got off at Union Square. We swapped numbers like it was 2009 and not an app-poisoned age.
Texted a few times. It was nice. It was light. I let myself imagine, just a little, in that way I promised myself I'd stopped doing.
And then. The slow fade. The read receipt that just sits there like an accusation. The boy from the L train, gone back into the eight million.
Here's what I keep doing, and I'm not proud of it. I keep running the whole thing like a scene from some DDLJ situation in my head, except Shah Rukh Khan doesn't turn around on the platform. He just transfers to the 4, 5, 6 and disappears.
My friend Sana told me, not everything is a love story, Pooja, some things are just a nice conversation. And I hate when she's right.
The thing is, the boy from the L train gave me something anyway. He reminded me I can still feel that little flicker. After the breakup last spring I genuinely wondered if that part of me had gone quiet for good.
It hasn't. It's just picky now. It flickers on a subway platform for a stranger who likes my coat.
I'm not going to double-text. I have some dignity, though not much, evidenced by this entire post. I'm going to let him be a nice twenty-minute memory on the L.
Bedford to Union Square. A good coat. A good conversation. A soft maybe that stayed a maybe.
Some people are just a stop on the way, not the destination. I'm learning to wave at the platform and stay on the train.
Love,