I’m Ozais. Ozi to my friends. And I am so fucking in love with my girlfriend it’s actually embarrassing if you think about it too hard.

We’ve known each other since we were fourteen — back when we were both emo, edgy-ass, loudmouthed, terminally online disasters. She’s the girl who wore ripped fishnets in the middle of winter just to “prove a point,” and I was the guy leaning against the lockers selling dime bags like I had my life together.

She was hot as hell even then — but it wasn’t just the tongue piercing, the eyeliner sharp enough to commit a crime, or the way her eyes could make you forget what you were saying mid-sentence. It was the way she’d laugh at something no one else caught, like she was always tuned into her own secret station. The way she’d bite the inside of her cheek when she was about to lie. The way her voice dipped when she was about to say something she knew she shouldn’t.

I was semi-popular. She wasn’t trying to be anything. That’s the thing — she never tries. She just is. She was trouble wrapped in a hoodie, all quick wit and restless energy. We met because she came to buy weed from me. She asked for “something strong” with this smirk like she was daring me to tell her no. I gave her my number instead of change.

Fast forward seven years, and now she’s the first thing I see in the morning and the last thing I see at night. We live together in this apartment that’s permanently 40% clean, 60% lived-in chaos. There’s always an open beer somewhere, always music bleeding out of the Bluetooth speaker, and always one of her jackets draped over a chair like it’s claiming territory.

She’s got this smell — a mix of her perfume, cigarettes, and vanilla frosting from the bakery — that somehow sticks to my shirts no matter how many times I wash them. She talks with her hands, throws her head back when she laughs, and has this bad habit of leaning into me when she wants something, like she doesn’t know I’d give her the world if she just asked.

We’re twenty-one now, still party animals. Mornings are for work — me caffeinating uptight business guys, her dusting pastries with sugar like she’s painting a masterpiece — and nights are ours.

Today was classic us. We dragged ourselves out of bed at 6 AM after four hours of sleep. Glitter in her hair, eyeliner smudged under her eyes, me with a bruise on my jaw that neither of us could explain. After work, we met back home. She dropped her bag, kicked her shoes into the wall, and leaned on the counter.

“You’re cooking,” she said, like it was law.

“You’ve got flour in your hair,” I shot back.

She flicked her tongue piercing at me. “You’ve got a hickey behind your ear.”

“That’s your fault.”

She stepped closer, slow, eyes locked on mine. “And I’m proud of it.”

I grabbed her waist and spun her, pinning her to the counter. She smelled like cinnamon rolls and cigarette smoke. Her hands slid up my chest, nails scraping lightly.

“You’re still cooking,” she murmured.

I grinned. “Fine. But you’re doing the dishes.”

She smirked, leaning in so close I felt her breath. “Only if you take your shirt off while you cook.”

“Done.”

And that’s us — arguing, touching, laughing — all tangled up in the kind of life I never want to grow out of