Petya

Bookshop. Tuesday. I'm in fiction, she's in fiction, and already this sounds like the setup to something I'd mock if it happened in someone else's book.

Her name is Petya. I don't know that yet. What I know is: green eyes. Dark hair. A nose that has no business being that charming - wide, a little crooked, the centrepiece of a face that doesn't need symmetry to work. And below the neck - look, I'm not going to be coy about it. Tits: outstanding. Ass: criminal. The whole picture was aggressive in the best possible way.

I walked up to her because I have never in my life seen something I wanted and decided the correct response was to stand still.

We talked. She was easy. Not easy like simple - easy like comfortable. Like the conversation had no edges. She laughed at things I said that weren't even jokes, which is either flattering or a sign she needs better standards. Those green eyes never wandered. Full attention. Full curiosity. Like I was the most interesting thing in the fiction section, which - obviously. But still.

Coffee. She said yes. We went somewhere nearby and sat and she ordered something absurd with foam, and I ordered a black coffee because one of us has to be the adult.

I was interested. Obviously. I was watching her mouth when she talked and her hands when she gestured and the way she tilted her head before disagreeing with me, which she did often, which made me want to disagree with her more just to see her do it again. I was running the numbers. Quietly. The way women do with other women - not calculating, just listening for a signal underneath the signal.

The signal said: no.

Not rudely. Not explicitly. Just - the frequency wasn't there. She liked me. She didn't want me. And I've been doing this long enough to know that those are two completely different postcodes.

Straight. Fine. Genuinely fine. I've been turned down by better. That's a joke. Nobody's better. But the point is - it didn't sting. Some doors are closed and you don't need to bang on them. You just tip your hat and keep walking. Metaphorically. I don't wear hats. They make my head look weird.

So we just talked. And it was actually great. Not consolation-prize great. Real great. She was sharp. Quick. Had opinions that arrived fully dressed and ready to fight.

Summer plans. Vacations. She asked me if I'd tried glamping. I asked her if she'd tried making sense. She explained - camping with nice beds, wine, fairy lights. I said so it's lying about camping. She said it's an experience. I said so is food poisoning. She called me impossible. I said that's the nicest thing anyone's said to me all week and I meant it.

Then - men. Of course. Two women, one coffee each, give it twenty minutes and the conversation lands on men like a plane that was always going to crash there regardless of weather conditions. It's physics. It's fate. It's exhausting and we do it anyway.

She had one. A guy. Nearby. Colleague or something. They had a thing - not a thing thing, but the scaffolding of a thing. Looks across rooms. Moments that lasted a beat too long. The kind of tension that makes you stupid and careful at the same time.

"So go get him," I said. Because I don't understand the alternative.

Her face. You'd think I'd asked her to eat glass.

"No. He needs to make the first move."

I waited. For the argument. For the philosophy. For the TED talk.

"Because... he's the man?"

She said it like punctuation. Like a full stop you don't get to argue with. Sky is blue. Water is wet. Men go first. Next topic.

I didn't fight her. I liked her too much. And she wasn't asking for my opinion, she was telling me how the world works. From her side of it. With complete, unshakeable certainty. Like a woman who's never needed to question the rule because the rule has never inconvenienced her enough to examine.

Must be nice.

We finished coffee. Swapped numbers. Cheek kiss outside the shop. She smelled like vanilla, which I'm choosing not to read into.

But it followed me home. Up four flights because this building doesn't believe in elevators. Onto the balcony. Into the cigarette.

They need to make the first move.

I sat with it. The way I sit with all the things that bother me — in smoke, in silence, in the purple light Sofia does when it's too tired to be grey anymore.

Why?

Not why do people believe it. I get that. It's comfortable. It's ancient. It's a system where nobody has to be brave because the roles are assigned before you even enter the room. He pursues. She permits. Everyone knows their line. Nobody improvises. It's community theatre for cowards.

But Petya isn't a coward. Petya is smart and sharp and has eyes that could start a religion. And she's sitting three desks from a man she wants, doing nothing, because someone told her that wanting out loud is his job.

Since when?

Since the same people who said I should sit still and look pretty? Since the same crowd who said a woman who goes after what she wants is desperate and a man who does it is romantic? Since the people who built a world where my desire is a secret I'm supposed to keep and his is a gift he's supposed to deliver?

Fuck that. And I say this with love.

I approached Petya in a bookshop. Cold open. No invitation. No signal. Just walked up and used my mouth for its intended purpose, which is talking and occasionally other things but today just talking. She said no with her whole energy and it cost me nothing. A coffee. An hour. A question I can't stop thinking about.

If I'd waited? Tuesday happens. She reads her book. I read mine. Two women, three shelves apart, in silence, forever. And the world loses one interesting conversation because nobody went first.

Petya is somewhere right now. Near a man she likes. Waiting. With those green eyes and that body and that brain that deserves better than a waiting room. Waiting for him to do the thing she could do herself in thirty seconds but won't because the rules say it's not her turn.

And he's probably sitting there too. Three desks away. Wanting. Waiting. Wondering if she'd say yes but too terrified to find out.

Two people. Same want. Same room. Zero movement. A perfectly good love story rotting on the shelf because neither of them will pick it up first.

And someone, somewhere, decided this was the system that works.

Petya, sweetheart. I say this as someone who shot her shot with you four hours ago and missed - go talk to him. Walk over. Open your mouth. Say literally anything. It doesn't need to be clever. It doesn't need to be smooth. It just needs to be first.

Or don't. Keep waiting. I'm sure it's lovely over there. Quiet. Dignified. Safe.

I'll be at the bar. Already talking to someone.

- Laura