Zenitopia

Their first date had been to dinner and a movie, and they’d ended up in bed.

Their second date was an all-day trip to San Francisco. She didn’t live there any more, but she believed everyone should see it. She was wearing flowered stretchpants, a baggy sweater, walking boots. He was wearing jeans, a t-shirt and a trench-coat. They held hands, and bumped their hips against each other as they walked.

They stopped in a comic book store, for him.
A stationery store, for her.
A sword store, because they both wanted to see the shiny metal weaponry.

Later that night, on a pier overlooking the ocean, they held hands and kissed, and the salt air stung their faces but they didn’t care.

Ten years later, they would separately remember the first days of their life together. Life wasn’t so bad now, but there were stressful jobs, mortgages, car payments - so many things they hadn’t had to deal with a decade earlier.

She keeps a box of his old letters to her, opens it from time to time. The one about just sitting and holding her hand makes her cry, and the tears taste like salt, but they don’t sting.

He wants to know what’s wrong.

“Nothing,” she says. “I just love you.”

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For the Cafe Writing March Project . Option One: Fiction.