green tea, if you please.

"c'mon, we're going to be late!" we had a long walk ahead of us.

"it feels a bit like bragging, no?" he asked with a twinge of accent in his voice, a hint of his parisian birth, as he readjusted his backpack.

divisadero was rough today. on both of us. the pandemic had done its job of keeping us inside; my body was a bit softer than it was a year prior. we were celebrating — both of our new jobs were starting soon. we were finally getting paid what we deserved, or so we thought, perhaps a bit more. but finally, enough to live off of in this forsaken city with building height limits. we'd already discussed the greater implications of what were getting into: about finding a lucrative job in the midst of a pandemic, what it meant for us to be in an entirely new tax bracket, what this could mean for the causes we care about. we could no longer call ourselves poor socialists; i don't know if he ever did.

"i don't think so," i murmured, suddenly unsure. "we worked hard to get here."

my brow furrowed just as théodore shot me a look. i think he knew i was already going down the rabbit hole of second-guessing myself.

"i mean, it isn't for you," he playfully swung his backpack into mine. "it's nice to see someone smart getting paid well."

it was my turn to shoot him a look.

"you mean a woman," i laughed. "i remember our gender equity conversation."

"hey!" he flashed that boyish grin at me, as if he were more than only three years my junior. i always loved spending time with him; he was so light-hearted about most things, and this was no different.

we had a bit of walking to do as we headed toward fort mason; we let the hills speak for us, his breathing getting deeper with mine as i tried to keep up, more than half a foot shorter than my companion. i was grateful our masks hung under our chins so i could see his face settle into a smirk. okay, i was mostly thankful for the unobstructed air.

he didn't come from money, per se, but his father had done what i am trying to do, built himself out of poverty so his family could have a good life. the only differences being his father went on to own multiple hotels in paris, and i didn't want kids.

théodore, of course, did.

and théodore is a good man; he means well, and he's smart. he's kind. he's just a bit forgetful sometimes, but i'm always happy to forgive him. he understood me and where i was coming from; he never took anything the wrong way. we were just on the same wavelength. he knew my horrific upbringings, and he knew i've come a long way.

what hung heavy in air between us was not the oxygen displaced by the carbon monoxide exhaled from us. it was the fact that both of us were realizing we didn't quite need each other as much anymore. i finally made enough to buy my own condo in the city or a slice of suburbia in sunnyvale... and so could he.

i had finally cut it, my own slice of upper-middle class; what good worker bees we both were, right? don't you remember comforting me, justifying my choices when i wrestled with them? he rationalized every part of this slice i'd found that screamed comfort, wailed security, whispered safety. i wasn't used to this feeling, this feeling of stability, and he helped me through it. who would do that? he would.

wrestling with your independence and learning how to trust people, all while madly in love with someone, is incredibly difficult.

"i was reading about the benefits," théodore cut through my thoughts with his consonant articulation. "you know, we'd be in a lower tax bracket if we got married."

pour another?