Love. Level: sneakers

At sixteen, love seemed strongly linked to discovering little corners of a too-big world - close enough to hear the same silence.

Coffee in plastic mugs.
Cigarettes, half-smoked and forgotten.
The shots.
A hand brushing hair away, fingertips pausing a second too long on her cheek.
Holding hands. Casually. Quietly. Desperately.
Two hearts beating louder than the world allowed.
The girlfriend’s scent.
The ache of not knowing what to name it.
A drunken kiss on a museum's rooftop.
The joy. The fear. The silence.
The truth - that it didn't go further.
Leah never asked why this happened. She didn’t need to.