Select the Best Option for Our Origin Story

☐ We met when your family moved next door. Spent our summers building a clubhouse. Played kickball and caught fireflies.

☐ We met when you transferred to my high school. Had our first kiss under the bleachers. Stayed out past curfew and smoked cigarettes.

☐ We met in college. Bumped into each other navigating the library stacks. Played beer pong and spooned in a bunk bed.

☐ We met at our corporate internship. Made copies and coffee. Made out in the conference room.

☐ We met via an online dating site. Played darts. Did lunch, then did each other.

☐ We met at a mutual friend’s wedding. Walked the beach, hands clasped. Got drunk and skinny dipped in the ocean.

☐ We met online, arousal escalating across hearts, posts, and messages. We rendezvous at motels halfway between our homes and do everything but sleep in rented-by-the-hour rooms. We whisper promises like forever, that aren’t ours to give. We are lust drunk. High on huffing each other. It’s dangerous and wrong and messy as fuck. In that chaos, we share a collective delusion. Pretend it’s love. Fabricate fate. What if we are imperfect partners made perfect together? What if we are simply realigning mis-assembled pieces? Could our origin story be more than flimsy fiction, tangled up in threadbare motel sheets and lies?

☐ Fuck beginnings, we are racing to the end.