Lucas

  Who knew a color could taste like destiny? His POV The gym is a place where people do not fall in love. It is a place where they count. Reps. Seconds. Calories. Heartbeats. No chaos, no color, and then, Pink, when the world was black and grey. Pink, in a place built for steel and sweat and silence. Pink, in holiness where it shouldn’t be. She walks in and suddenly black and grey feel like mourning color The first time I saw her, I lost count of my reps. The second time, I forgot to start my set. The third time, I accepted that my world had been rewritten but the presence of one person I did not even know. She was everything I had trained myself not to notice. Then came the Beyonce moment. I was walking toward the exit when the song blasted through the speakers. “All the single ladies! All the single ladies!” She raised her hand and I swear I almost dropped my bag. It was stupid, ridiculous, a joke, but my heart took it as a sign. A hand in the air, a careless gesture that I clung to like a fool. Single, she’s single. As if I’ve been waiting for? proof that she isn’t already someone else’s dream. And when she turned, when our eyes met, when she realized I had seen her, I smiled. I have lifted weights heavy enough to make my bones shake, but nothing. Nothing has ever knocked the breath from my lungs like the moment she looked at me. She looked away fast, as if she could erase the moment if she moved quickly enough. As if she had not just carved something permanent into my bones. We had little interactions here and there, but everytime that feeling wouldn't go away. I have never believed in love at first sight, but if it exists, I swear it wears a pink top and has eyes that could bring a man to his knees. Then came that night when she was late. She walked in late. Too late. for forty-six minutes, I had told myself to move on. That she wasn’t coming. That I was an idiot for waiting.