• • •
We’re holding hands.
Him eating said cotton candy — mostly air, mostly nostalgia, completely worth the eight dollars apparently.
Standing in front of a tank full of seahorses like two people with nothing but time getting to know each other again.
“Did you know,” I say, “that the male seahorse carries the babies.”
Cassian looks at me.
“What.”
“The male one. He gets pregnant. Carries them.”
A pause.
“Why are you telling me this.”
“I just thought it was interesting.”
“Why are you looking at me like that while you say it.”
“I’m not looking at you.”
“Ro.”
“I’m looking at the seahorses.”
He stares at me for a long moment.
Then turns back to the tank.
“Not happening,” he says.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinking something.”
I was absolutely thinking something.
• • •
He finishes my cotton candy and we decide now is a good time to move on to the next exhibit.
I laugh at something he says at the jellyfish tank.
It surprises me.
The sound of it.
Like something coming back online.
Like a light flickering on in a room that’s been dark for a long time.
I’d forgotten what it felt like.
That specific lightness.
