Chapter 3 The First Minute
The First Minute
ELI
The darkness didn’t just fade; it unfolded, thick and warm, carrying me somewhere I hadn’t been in years.
I was barefoot in the backyard of my childhood home, the sun baking my shoulders, grass stiff beneath my toes.
The cicadas created a deafening symphony that threatened to shake the whole world apart.
I gripped the baseball mitt in my hand; the leather worn and soft. My father crouched in front of me, grinning as if no time had passed at all. “C’mon, Elias,” he said, voice warm and alive. “Show me what you’ve got.”
My lungs seemed to stretch open for the first time in hours.
The panic that gripped my heart loosened.
The stinging pain of glass shards and bruising faded.
I wasn’t strapped to a gurney. I wasn’t bleeding out.
I was whole again, smiling, breathing air thick with the smell of summer and beginnings.
My hands itched to catch the ball, to feel the leather bite into my fingers.
My heart thudded—not with fear, but with a pulse that felt like possibility.
I threw the ball, heard it whistle through the air, and felt my chest expand with something I hadn’t realized I’d been missing until that moment—pure, unguarded joy. My father laughed, and the sound pulled me fully into the memory.
The sun burned. The grass smelled sweet. My fingers clutched the leather mitt. And I could feel, in the deepest parts of me, the reel spinning forward, ready to unravel every moment that mattered, every touch, every laugh, every heartbeat that had led me to Adrian.
The image faded, replaced by a bark. High, eager, familiar.
I turned, and there he was, bounding toward me.
Max. My dog. The mutt we adopted from the shelter when I was nine, his ears too big for his head, his joy too big for his body.
His paws kicked up little sprays of dirt as he tore across the yard, tongue lolling, eyes bright.
I dropped the ball and fell to my knees just before he slammed into me like he always did, all fur and warmth and unconditional love.
His weight bowled me over into the grass, and I laughed so hard it hurt.
His breath was hot against my cheek, his tail wagging wildly as he danced, and for a second, I was swallowed whole by the kind of love that never asked for anything in return.
For the first time in forever, I felt safe.
The grass faded. The cicadas’ drone melted into the squeak of sneakers on polished wood. Middle school gym. The air smelled of rubber soles and sweat. I was twelve, a scrawny, awkward boy gripping a basketball too big for my hands. My best friend dared me to take the shot.
The world narrowed to the rim, the ball heavy with possibility. I held my breath and threw it. It arched beautifully; everyone was silent—then, swish.
For a moment, everything stopped.
Then came the noise: cheers, laughter, the pounding of feet. My ears rang with it. Heat rushed up from my stomach, flooding my limbs until I felt weightless. My legs wobbled, but I couldn’t stop grinning. I wasn’t invisible. I mattered.
It was the first time I’d ever felt proud of myself, unquestionably, unapologetically proud.
The scene flickered and shifted.
A bonfire at the lake. Teenagers laughing, faces glowing in the firelight.
The acrid sweetness of smoke clung to my clothes, mingling with the sour tang of cheap beer.
Music played from a speaker. My first kiss was with Josh Sinclair, and it was messy, clumsy, and full of nerves and fumbling hands.
My stomach flipped. My chest lifted and dropped with the thrill of it, and my heartbeat drummed erratically.
I remember thinking maybe the world had a place for me, and I might just survive it.
Another flicker.
Bulbs flashed. Cheers erupted. Someone shouted my name across the crowd, and I turned just in time to see my friends waving their caps in the air, faces split with grins that made everything blur for a second.
The flashbulbs of hundreds of cameras firing at once were blinding, the pop and click of shutters like drumbeats.
Graduation. Heat pressed through the stiff fabric of my gown, sticking it to the back of my neck.
The air smelled like carnations and cheap perfume.
My mom’s eyes found me in the crowd, shining so bright I could’ve sworn they reflected the whole world.
When she finally reached me, she threw her arms around me and squeezed until my lungs protested, but it hurt in the best possible way—the kind that says you made it.
I could feel her breath against my ear when she whispered, “I’m so proud of you.”
And something inside me burst open, a mixture of relief and disbelief flooding through me.
I thought maybe I could be okay. That I might actually make it through to something bright.
Something worth holding onto. The chokehold my teenage angst and gay panic had on me over the last few years dissolved somewhat.
The images continued to spin, the edges of the memory glowing too warm and golden to be real.
The distinct smell of leather and gasoline filled my lungs, sharp and new.
My hands gripped the steering wheel of a car.
It was dented and used, with worn upholstery and a sagging roof liner, but it was mine.
The keys had jingled in my pocket like a promise all day, and now here I was, windows rolled down, radio turned up loud, and the road stretching out in front of me like it had been waiting just for me.
The first turn was precarious, my foot too heavy on the gas, but the thrill drowned out the fear. Wind whipped through my hair and stung my face, carrying the taste of possibility, of a life finally in my control. The world didn’t feel like a cage. It felt wide open. Boundless.
And then the picture turned to static, a harsh flash bleeding into something softer. The antiseptic sting of the ER peeled back, replaced by the rich, bitter scent of coffee. I knew this place. I knew this day.
I was twenty again, standing in line at the campus café, trying to look casual while my hands vibrated from too much caffeine and not enough sleep.
My stomach churned with nervous energy, every nerve on edge.
I didn’t notice him at first. Not until the barista slid my latte across the counter and my elbow clipped it.
The cup tipped, splashing a white wave across the lid and onto him.
“Shit—sorry—” I fumbled for napkins, heat scorching my cheeks, tongue sticking against the roof of my mouth.
He looked up, and God, that look! Those sharp eyes pinned me in place. His laugh was soft and startled as he shook drops of cream off his sleeve. His dark hair fell into his eyes, glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose, and a textbook tucked under his arm that I wanted to carry for him.
“It’s fine.” His rich, low voice struck somewhere deep in my chest, vibrating against my heart. “Better than getting burned by hot coffee. You, uh… always this smooth?”
I should have wanted the floor to swallow me, but instead I laughed too, and the sound lit something up inside me. Something I hadn’t realized I’d been missing until that moment. My breath caught sharp and wrong, like something inside me had been bent double and forced straight again.
The world had felt muted until his laugh cracked it open. Bright, unguarded, and sliding into me like sunlight through a window I hadn’t known was closed. My stomach flipped. My hands twitched in restless anticipation, almost reaching for him before I realized how exposed I felt.
My body wasn’t built to hold a sound that alive.
One drink turned into three, and then a croissant we didn’t need but ordered anyway, just to stretch the minutes.
I remember the way he broke the pastry in half, sugar dusted across his fingers and the table, and I could feel my pulse hammering in my ears like a drum.
Absurdly, I wanted to be the thing he held so carefully, every shard of attention he gave, every subtle gesture.
“So, uh,” I said, voice shaking despite my effort to be casual, “is this where I’m supposed to ask for your number, or do I just keep showing up here at the same time every day until fate gets bored with me?”
He smirked—God, that smirk, wicked, charming—and slid his phone across the table. “Bold of you to assume fate has the attention span for that.”
I fumbled, nearly dropped the phone, and he laughed again. That same laugh that had rewired something inside me. My hands shook as I typed my name and number, each press of a key engraving a promise into the air between us. Permanent. Irrevocable.
Every detail seared itself into me. The bitter bite of espresso that clung to my tongue.
The scrape of chair legs against tile when he leaned in closer.
The faint, woodsy scent of his cologne, clean and sharp, was the start of something dangerous.
His glasses slipped down his nose, and he pushed them up with the back of his hand, casual, thoughtless, making my pulse stutter hard, as if my heart was telling me: this is it. This is the moment everything changes.
It was all so clear. The smell of the café.
The buttery taste of the croissant. The way my stomach swooped when he smiled, the air between us charged with something that felt both brand new and entirely inevitable.
My fingers itched to reach across the table, to touch him, to claim even a fraction of that warmth.
That was it—the first flicker. The moment the reel began to spool.
And somehow, I was already building a life around him before either of us knew it.
I could see my name next to his on a marriage certificate, the wax seal on our wedding invitations pressed with his initials, his handwriting scrawled across grocery lists and sticky notes, his jacket hanging beside mine on the hook by the door.
All the quiet proofs of forever taking shape around a single laugh in a corner café.
And lying there now—heart stopped, body broken—I understood: this memory wasn’t just a beginning. It was a promise. Everything that mattered, everything that followed, began with that laugh, that glance, that impossible, ridiculous accident with a cup of coffee.
Adrian.
Always Adrian.