No big social media presence. No oversharing. No easy breadcrumb trail for anyone in New Jersey who might one day decide to look me up between country club lunches and self-serving narratives.
Aunt Patricia knew everything. Marcus knew nearly everything. Nobody else got much unless I chose it.
Marcus arrived in my life at twenty-six carrying patience in both hands.
We met at an architecture networking event where half the room was pretending not to assess the other half for usefulness. He was an architect with an eye for structure and a face that looked better the longer you knew it. No performance. No flashy lines. He listened in complete sentences, which is rarer than beauty and infinitely more valuable.
He asked me what kind of spaces I loved working on.
“Rooms where people are trying to become honest,” I said before thinking.
Instead of looking confused, he smiled.
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is.”
“I build public libraries,” he said. “So I guess I make places for people to lie to themselves less privately.”
I laughed hard enough that two men near the bar turned.
That was the beginning.