The Possibility of Her
He walks away from the coffee shop, boots scraping against concrete that sparkles like it's embedded with a million tiny diamonds. The LA sun does that—makes everything glitter, even when it shouldn’t.
The taste of his americano sparks like a live wire. Her laugh still echoes in his ears, the way she threw her head back when he fumbled with his wallet, dropped it, coins scattering across the floor like startled mice. She helped him pick them up. Their fingers brushed three times. He counted.
Fuck.
The weight of possibility settles on his shoulders like a lead vest. An X-ray blanket of future potential crushing his spine. He hasn’t even asked for her number, and he’s already imagining how he’ll have to tell her about the anxiety meds. About the time he got fired for having a panic attack during a client meeting. About his mother.
A palm tree towers overhead, its brown fronds dropping onto a Tesla. Some guy in yoga pants gives him a dirty look as he stands frozen in the middle of the sidewalk like a tourist. But he can’t move. Not yet. His body is still processing the way she tucked her hair behind her ear, revealing a small crescent moon tattoo.
He starts walking again. Past juice bars, Botox clinics, and dogs in sweaters, even though it’s 75 degrees. The weight gets heavier with each step.
What if she likes hiking? He hates hiking. Everyone in LA loves hiking, and he’s the one asshole who’d rather stay inside and read. She had a Patagonia sticker on her laptop. Fuck. She definitely likes hiking.
The ring his grandmother left him is in a safety deposit box downtown. He’s never even seen it in person, just in a photo his mom texted before she died. Vintage art deco, small diamonds flanking a sapphire. He’s already wondering if the blue would match her eyes.
Jesus Christ. Get it together.
On the corner, a homeless man has an animated conversation with a palm tree. At least someone’s talking to somebody. He should have asked for her number. But then he’d have to text her. Then call her. Then disappoint her.
The Santa Ana winds kick up, hot and dusty, carrying the scent of jasmine from someone’s yard. His throat tightens. In the coffee shop, she’d been reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. He’d noticed it upside down while picking up his scattered quarters. He has the same copy at home, dog-eared and coffee-stained. The universe doesn’t just hand you coincidences like that without expecting something in return.
He turns down a side street to avoid the crowds on Main. The responsibility of serendipity. The weight of stars aligning. His therapist would tell him he’s catastrophizing again. Jumping ten steps ahead. Planning the divorce before the first date.
A group of teenagers spills out of a boba shop, laughing at something on someone’s phone. He remembers being that young. No, he doesn’t. He was never that young. Even at sixteen, he carried the weight of things that hadn’t happened yet.
Her name is Jane. A basic name for a not-so-basic person. She had dirt under her fingernails. Real dirt, not artifice. She’d mentioned a community garden, and he’d already seen flashes of future Sundays—him holding tools he doesn’t know how to use, pretending to know the difference between herbs. The weight of small lies told to keep someone happy.
The sun is directly overhead now, shadows nowhere to be found. His apartment is four blocks away, but he turns in the opposite direction. Keeps walking. Past boutiques selling hundred-dollar plain white T-shirts. Past a line of people waiting for gourmet ice cream. Past a guy installing a security camera on a coffee shop that used to be a bookstore, that used to be a head shop, that used to be someone’s dream.
His phone buzzes. Unknown number. His heart stops, starts, then stops again. It’s just spam about his car’s extended warranty. He doesn’t own a car. Can’t deal with the 405, the parking lot they call a freeway. Two hours to go fifteen miles while Tesla drivers pretend their autopilot means they can watch Netflix. The bus sucks, but at least he can read while someone else navigates the hellscape of LA traffic.
The wind picks up, scattering loose newspaper pages and discarded cold brew cups. Apocalypse wind. He thinks about her fingers—short nails, silver rings—the way they looked as she picked up his scattered change. The way she’d stacked the coins neatly before handing them back. Order imposed on chaos.
He’s never getting married. He’s already planning their wedding. Small ceremony. No, big ceremony. No, they’ll elope. Vegas? No, Joshua Tree. She seems like a Joshua Tree person. The weight of assumptions.
A movie poster shows a couple kissing in the rain. LA hasn’t seen rain in six months. He checks his weather app. No rain forecasted for the next ten days. The pressure of waiting for perfect conditions that never come.
He should go back. Ask for her number. No, too desperate. Yes, confident. No, creepy. The wind blows an empty potato chip bag into his face. Even the trash is trying to tell him something.
He pulls out his phone again. Opens Instagram. Closes it. Opens Twitter. Closes it. Opens his contacts and stares at the space where her number should be. The weight of empty spaces waiting to be filled.
The sun keeps shining. The palm trees keep shedding. The teenagers keep laughing. And he keeps walking, carrying the weight of a future that exists only in his head but feels more real than the concrete beneath his feet.