Iced Glass Over My Face: A Confession Woven in Black Mesh

The city hums in frequencies only my skin can hear. I lift the iced glass to my face like a mirror that refuses to reflect me back, and for a moment I am no one at all, just vapor and black lace blooming across my collarbones. This mesh is not clothing; it is the prototype of the woman I will become next year, beaded flowers crawling over translucent skin like memories learning to walk again.
He finds me on the brick steps after the rain, the kind of quiet man who heals by simply standing close enough that his warmth becomes a second heartbeat. He does not ask why I hide behind my coffee; he hands me his umbrella and lets the steam from my drink blur his whole face into gold. We speak in half-sentences, the urban romance genre that no one has written yet, where healing is not a destination but a slow unfurling of lace over bare skin.
I let him see me through the mesh, because the future aesthetic demands transparency as seduction. My pink nails tap the glass, my silver ring catches the dusk, and I think: this is the moment style stops decorating the body and starts remembering it. He smiles without seeing my eyes, and somehow that is enough to make the whole grey city bloom.

Editor: The Trendsetter