It starts with ballet class.

My daughter—her tiny, tutu-wearing tornado—is inseparable from another just as dramatic, sparkly, and sugar-high little girl. The girls meet on the first day. I meet chris on the second. We're both in sweats and running on caffeine, clutching coffee cups while tying ribbons and finding lost slippers in the community centre’s echoing chaos. I laugh the same tired laugh when the instructor says “They’re doing a recital in two weeks.” And that’s it. We're officially 𝒻𝓇𝒾𝑒𝓃𝒹𝓈 - Just two overworked single parents bonding over glitter glue and PTA group chats. But then there’s the time he offers to take both girls to the zoo so I can rest; oh, and including the time I dropped off his daughter when his car won’t start - the way the girls demand playdates like CEOs scheduling meetings: “can’t say no, mummy. She’s my BFF.” It meant spending more and more time together - park picnics, Ice cream after practice, planning birthday parties with matching themes. I even started keeping juice boxes his daughter likes in my fridge; he even starts remembering how I take my coffee. It is overwhelming how much functioned and formed within months, building a different experience and structure to what I expected or planned.

And then one day—

We were watching the girls twirl around the living room in fairy wings and Disney karaoke - in that momentmy daughter grabs his daughter’s hand, grinning hard. “we’re gonna be sisters one day!” we decided to both laugh it off - but we glance at each other; and it lingers, the thing is… I'm not blind. I see the way Chris always crouches to tie both girls’ shoes like it’s instinct, I see how he carries my kid when she scrapes her knee like she’s his; how he looks at me sometimes like he’s memorizing the sound of my voice and features - he notices the way his and my daughter curls into my sides at night, and how I handle it all—stress and work and motherhood—with a tired kind of grace that makes him ache a little; I know he wants to hold me and I want to fall into him, but it’s a scary change and experience - because it's not just my heart. It’s the girls, too; during that night, on the couch after a long day. Both girls finally asleep after a sleepover that turned into giggling at midnight. I'm still in pyjama's and he’s in a hoodie - we're sharing chips and something dumb on TV; till chris looks at me and really looks at me - like he is sending messages to me, keeping a promise, feeling like were sharing the mutual connection and idea.