I said it first. On the Williamsburg Bridge. Halfway across, with the J train screaming past us on the tracks.
So here's the thing. In every Bollywood film I grew up on, the man says it first. Dramatically. In the rain, usually, running through an airport, an orchestra swelling out of nowhere. The woman just gets to be loved out loud.
I did not get an orchestra. I got the J train and a man named Sameer who looked at me like I'd short-circuited.
We'd walked from the Delancey side because he wanted to show me the view of the city at dusk, all pink and gold and stupidly romantic. And I just — I couldn't hold it anymore. It came out sideways. "I think I love you," I said, and then immediately, "you don't have to say anything."
Classic. Confess love and then apologize for it. Very me.
He didn't say it back right away. And reader, I wanted to jump off the Williamsburg Bridge directly into the East River.
But then he laughed, this soft surprised laugh, and pulled me in, and said it back into my hair so quietly I almost missed it under the train noise.
Here is what I've been thinking about since. My whole life I waited to be chosen. To be the one who gets loved first, safely, without risk. But being an adult in New York City means learning to go first. To be the one who says the scary thing out loud on a bridge and just trusts that you'll survive if it doesn't land.
I've been in this city long enough to know the bravest thing isn't the falling. It's the saying.
We walked the rest of the way to Williamsburg holding hands and not talking, both a little stunned by ourselves.
Say it first. The bridge will hold you.
Love,