“Done with what?”

“Feeling like a teenager. Feeling like someone might stay.”

They still had baggage. He had an ex who called too late at night. She had a teenage daughter who rolled her eyes at every “Good morning, beautiful” text. But the difference between twenty and forty is that you stop waiting for a perfect story. You take the messy, beautiful, unfinished draft—and you call it home.

“Forty looks good on you,” he said, then immediately apologized. “That sounded rehearsed.”

The Second Draft