A Letter to the Boy Who Sold Me an IQOS
I didn’t fall in love with you.
Not really.
Not in the dramatic, life-ruining way I write about at 2 a.m.
But I did fall into something soft when I saw you.
Something warm.
Something that made my chest loosen for the first time today.
You don’t know this, but I walked into the store half-dizzy, half-lost, carrying an entire storm behind my ribs.
And then there you were.
Tattoos peeking through your shirt.
Piercing shining when you smiled.
That delicate, carved face.
Slender, beautiful, Dom-approved kind of energy.
A little messy, a little punk, a little too pretty for my heart.
You asked me if my septum hurt when I got it.
You told me you wanted one too.
And there was something in the way you said it, something shy and curious, like you were letting me see a tiny piece of who you are when no one’s looking.
We talked about tattoos, obviously.
I told you I want to get my fingers tattooed.
You looked at me — really looked — and said:
“It’ll hurt.”
And without thinking, I told you:
“I’m not afraid of pain.”
You blinked, smiled, and said:
“Wow… I love how you say it.”
And my heart did something stupid and small and warm.
We kept talking
About style.
About corporate jobs.
About how people judge us for how we look.
And I told you, without thinking:
“Your style is yours. No one gets to take that from you as long as you do your job.”
And something in your eyes shifted.
Like you needed to hear that.
Like someone finally told you it’s okay to exist exactly as you are.
You told me you have a tattoo on your chest.
You smiled when you said it.
And the way you looked at me after…
like those words landed somewhere deeper than you expected…
that stuck with me.
And God, I smiled back like an idiot.
You kept talking to me while I tried to make the payment.
Stalling just a little.
Asking things.
Answering things.
Stretching time because maybe… just maybe…
you didn’t want the moment to end yet.
And neither did I.
It wasn’t dramatic.
It wasn’t forever.
It wasn’t even long.
It was nothing.
It was everything.
Just a spark between two strangers who recognized each other’s energy for five minutes on a random Black Friday.
I’ll probably never see you again.
And that’s fine.
Some people aren’t meant to stay.
They’re meant to show up, remind you that you’re still alive, still pretty, still interesting, still capable of connection —
even on the days when your chest feels like it’s collapsing.
So this is for you.
The boy who stopped me in the store.
The boy who asked about my septum.
The boy with tattoos on his chest
and a smile that felt like a tiny rebellion.
Thank you for being softness in a hard day.
You’ll probably never read this.
But if you ever do…
maybe call me.
— the girl who came in for cigarettes and left with a heartbeat 🩷