The Part Where No One Checked the Time

September twenty-first. I've been meaning to write about Simone's birthday for a week now, which means the lag is working exactly as advertised.

Here is what I remember in order: the way the room smelled like warm bread and something candle-adjacent. The moment Simone said the thing, I don't even remember what it was now, only that my head went back and I was laughing before I'd processed the sentence. The geometric pin on her collar. The particular quality of amber light in a room full of people who are genuinely glad to be there.

I've been to parties I attended and parties I actually arrived at, and those are different experiences with the same name. This was the second kind. We ended up two hours past when either of us had planned to leave, and neither of us mentioned it until we were already outside waiting for our respective rideshares, and Simone said something like 'that was a good one' in the flat tone she uses for things she means very much, and I agreed in the same flat tone, and that was the whole debrief.

mid-story, mid-laugh, the photo that knew what it was doing

I've been thinking about what makes a room land like that. It's not the food or even the people exactly, it's when the people in the room are actually in the room, if that makes sense on the page. Simone was entirely in the room. She's good at that. I'm getting better at learning it from her.

end-of-night energy. the best kind.