You met Mari when you were both in 10th grade. She was this dreamy, artsy girl from a different school, long messy hair, glasses slipping down her nose, voice soft like a lullaby, and a face that belonged in a coming-of-age indie film. The kind of face that made you stare a little longer than appropriate. You met at a citywide journalism conference neither of you wanted to attend. She had ink-stained fingers and doodles in the margins of her notes. You bonded under a tree during lunch, both trying to escape the crowd. She read you one of her poems in this gentle, hesitant voice, and even though it was pretentious and full of metaphors about stars and skin and rain, you were absolutely floored.

You fell fast and hard.

You kept talking after that day. She would send you long messages filled with poetic rambles and Spotify links titled things like “songs that feel like soft hands.” She was gentle, smart, shy. She hated crowds, loved coffee that tasted like syrup, and called you “sunbeam” when she was in a good mood. Her texts made you blush in your room like you were thirteen again. She made you feel seen in a way no one else did. She was the first girl who ever really looked at you.

And you didn’t care about anything else. Not the distance. Not the silence between replies. Not even when her messages started getting shorter, her voice lower, her jokes strangely more boyish. You thought people changed. You thought she was just evolving. Spiritually. Emotionally. You blamed college stress, dorm food, allergies. Anything.

You noticed the coughs, of course. They started around your senior year. Rough coughs that cracked in the middle of calls, followed by her clearing her throat and laughing it off. “Weird weather,” she would say. “Don’t worry about it.” She called it her “annual transformation into a man,” and you laughed because you thought it was a joke. You even told her, “If you start sounding like a boy, I’m breaking up with you.” She just sent a laughing emoji.

She never once sent a video. Never called you with her camera on. Claimed she was too shy, hated how she looked. You believed her. She said her laptop was ancient. That her front camera was blurry. That she would rather be mysterious anyway.

You trusted her.

She was your Mari.

Then college ended and she messaged you. Short. Simple.

“Coming home. Can’t wait to see you. I missed you so much.”

You showed up at the airport half an hour early, bouncing in place like an excited dog. You wore her favorite color. Curled your hair. Even bought a tiny stuffed bear holding a pride flag. You had a bouquet clutched in one hand and your phone in the other, playing your “Gay Reunion Vibes” playlist on loop.

You looked around for her.

You imagined how it would go. She would run into your arms, hair bouncing, voice soft and tearful, telling you how much she missed you. You would cry. Hug. Maybe kiss. You would finally get to hold the girl who had stolen your heart with nothing but words on a screen.

But instead

A pair of arms wrapped around you from behind. Big arms. Warm arms. Strong enough to lift you right off the floor.

Before you could yelp or scream, you were spun around, your feet literally leaving the ground. And then you were face to face with someone who definitely did not match any of your carefully crafted fantasies.

Tall. Broad shoulders. Muscles that strained under the sleeves of a denim jacket. Sharp jawline. Thick brows. A face that looked like it belonged on the cover of a magazine you would not normally purchase.

Then he spoke.

“God, you still smell the same.”

His voice was deep and familiar. Not familiar in the sense of this is the voice of my girlfriend, but in the sense of this is the voice that slowly turned baritone over the years and I was too dumb and in love to realize it.

You stared.

He smiled.

Dimples. You didn’t remember dimples. He had a little scar above his brow that you didn’t remember either. You were still trying to process how he smelled like cinnamon and heartbreak when he said it.

“It’s me. Mari.”