I smell her in a cosmetics store on the other side of the world. It hits me in waves that test my balance and fuck with space-time. For a moment, I half expect to turn the corner and see her browsing the next aisle, filling the air with the sweet fragrance of her perfume laced with the lingering scent of her last cigarette.

***

She’d stopped to chat on her way out for a smoke break. She always made my jaw drop, but that day she looked exceptionally striking. When I told her she was beautiful, she returned a haunting stare, like she was taking me in and holding back a floodgate simultaneously. What if I’d followed her? I wasn’t a regular smoker back when we could have taken breaks together, and what a missed opportunity for added time in each other’s company. What if, that day, I had dug a Camel from my bag—I usually had a few left over after a weekend out—and joined her on the back steps?

***

The door will close behind me, and she’ll hand me her lighter. It’ll be hard to keep my eyes off of her, in the black blazer I loved open over a black lace top. I’ll watch longingly as her perfectly manicured fingers bring a Marlboro to lips I ached to kiss. I loved her hands and how well they suited her, looking experienced and well cared for. I’ll think about the way they look writing, typing, holding a beer bottle, wrapped around the steering wheel of her truck. I’ll shiver imagining them on my body.

She’ll begin a story, and I’ll settle in next to her. In my periphery, I’ll catch the glare from her wedding band stacked with the engagement ring she’d bought herself fifteen or so years earlier. Though I laughed, I wasn’t joking when I said I would propose to her one day so that she’d have an engagement story to tell. It was a cautious, preemptive laughter, in case I crossed a line I was never sure existed but toed carefully just in case.

In her whiskey voice and cute Appalachian drawl, she’ll teach me more about herself—versions past, present, and future—and I’ll drink up every word. I wanted to know her, in all her complexity, in a way I’d never wanted to know another person before her. She’ll laugh, and she’ll say my name, like ‘gin’ but with a Southern Shift that comes out ‘gee-n,’ and I’ll be smitten. Side by side against the railing, I’ll feel the push-pull of her gravity circling mine, and in that tension, I’ll feel alive. We’ll take our last drags then I’ll follow her inside, breathing her in and wishing that cigarettes lasted twice as long.

***

When I pulled back from her lips and looked into her eyes, I was converting it all to memory: the taste of her mouth, the warmth of her skin, the ways she liked to be touched, the ways her gorgeous hands touched me. I was replaying little moments that had led to this one: all of our sideways glances and long, hungry gazes; sly smiles, genuine in their affection and joy; tender brushes against one another that we could read into or not. I was memorializing a feeling of rightness I didn’t know existed until now. I was taking her in and holding back a floodgate.

“What?” she asked, with a playful grin across her face. A million-dollar question because, what’s the word for this? I could have said, “I’m in love with you,” but I knew this was different. This was a break in my timeline and the start of a new one, in a more embodied state of existence. It was confirmation that this part of me, my queerness, was real. It was knowledge that what I felt for her was the piece that had always been missing and that she will forever be the person who brought it to the surface.

***

Standing opposite the perfume wall, I think about it. For more than a moment, I consider starting at the top, taking testers off the wall, and holding them to my nose until the fragrance on the nozzle matched the one in the air. Then I’d buy it, and do what with it, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to wear it, myself; I just wanted to possess it, to keep it on the shelf. I might, on occasion, spritz a little in the air when I’m smoking on my balcony—something, anything to feel connected to her.

But I check out with just my shampoo, step into the summer sun, and make my way through the lunchtime crowds. There’s a place I like to go to sit with big feelings. I choose a shaded bench near the fountain in the square where I can bask in the bustle of the city against the soothing roar of the water. I sit quietly for a few minutes before putting in my earbuds. I queue up a few heartbreak songs, light a cigarette, and press play.

-Jenn Stiles

Jenn Stiles (she/her) is a queer writer, collage artist, and West Virginia native currently making a home in the Boston area with her partner and pup.