Member-only story
The Night We Began
We played at being lovers caught in a tryst.
Gaia was untouchable — or so I thought when I first met her. It was opening night for my one-act play In Dreams We Fell in a showcase of other playwrights’ shorter works. I was still awkward around the theater community, so I typically stayed along the edges of the room. It also helped that I didn’t exactly draw my attention to myself very often. Even though my name was on the night’s playbill, no one sought me out in the crowd.
That was how I met Gaia as she too clung to the outer rim of the crowded lobby. We exchanged a few nervous glances at first, and she sipped at the amber-colored champagne in her glass. She wore a curve-hugging black lace dress that accentuated her petiteness. Fleetingly, I thought how easy it might be to bundle her up in my arms, but the image flashed away before I could even really process it.
But for once, I decided to be bold. “Are you an understudy?” I asked.
Her eyes flickered to mine warily. “No,” she answered after a pause. “I’m just here for an assignment.”
“You’re a journalist?” I asked, intrigued, because I would have guessed she was still a college student.
I could tell she fought it at first — as if she were afraid of welcoming my attention — but she ended up smiling…
