Seventy-Two Beats Before You Touched My Hand

The neon bled red across my sunglasses and I let it. That was the rule: armor on, pulse hidden behind gold hoops and a fur coat that cost more than my rent. My heart was doing its slow, bruised thing in my chest, sixty beats a minute of numbness after six months alone in this city.
Then you walked in. Not looked at me—walked in—and the air pressure in my lungs changed. I felt it physically, a drop, like stepping off a curb. My fingers curled around the strap of my bag so hard the leather creaked.
You set a cup of hot cocoa on the table between us and said nothing. Your eyes found mine over the rim of your own mug, and something in my sternum unlocked. The lace at my ribs felt suddenly too tight, the lacing down my chest a metaphor I did not ask for but could no longer ignore.
You reached across and took off my sunglasses. Slowly. Warm breath fogged the lenses as you set them down. And when your fingertips brushed my cheekbone to tuck a strand of blonde hair behind my ear, my heartboard stuttered—skipped, thumped, raced. Seventy-two beats in three seconds. I could feel it in my throat, in the hollow of my collarbone.
You whispered that I did not have to be cold anymore. And for the first time all winter, the fur around my shoulders stopped feeling like a wall and started feeling like a hug. My pulse settled into your rhythm, beat for beat, and I thought: there it is. The fever I was healing from was never the city. It was waiting for someone to take off my glasses so we could finally see each other.

Editor: Heartbeat Monitor