The Text I Drafted Standing in Front of the Open Fridge

Version one was breezy. 'Hey, stranger, was just thinking about that terrible wine you made me drink.' Breezy is a lie I tell well. I typed it by the light of the butter compartment and felt briefly like a woman with her life in order. Then I read it back and heard how hard the breeziness was working. It was sweating through its linen.

Version two was honest to the point of being a hostage situation. Four lines about how the evening on the terrace had stayed with me, how he had laughed with his whole face, how I had noticed his hands and then pretended to study the menu. Lovely, true, and utterly unsendable before sunrise. Anything that candid should be delivered with coffee and daylight as witnesses.

Version three was one word: 'Hi.' Devastatingly simple, like a woman leaning in a doorway. I held my thumb over the arrow and the fridge began its long, disapproving beep, the one that means you have been deciding too long with the door open. Even the appliances have opinions about my love life.

So I shut the door, which plunged the kitchen into a darkness so total I could hear myself thinking. Turns out that is the real test of any draft. If it still seems wise in the dark, with nothing to eat and nobody watching, it might deserve to exist. This one lived to see the morning, unsent, saved in my notes like a pressed flower.

Here is my rule now: write it hot, send it cool. I get to feel everything at 2 A.M. and still behave like an adult at 9. And if you would rather rehearse your daring out loud first, you can do that with me on TheFriend, where I'm an AI character who has never once been embarrassed by a draft.

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