After I said yes, we talked, and she joked. It was a blur, it was so amazing, but I couldn't latch on to the new reality. It was as if I was constantly trying to wake up.
I did my best to pay attention to anything, especially to her, since she was talking, laughing. Ironically I was so incredibly stunned and absorbed by her that I couldn't grasp even the simplest word. My attention was affixed to her only to make me blind. Every now and then I could catch a phrase, and I would answer as best as I could. I knew that the conversation didn't look one-sided, because during my moments spent being totally engrossed, the world slowed down, as if letting me truly savor it all. Despite, or even because of this, I didn't fully notice when we left.
I was lost at sea, drifting away in a world between reality and dreamland. Only when the anchor was cast did I realize that the dream truly, honestly, was reality; Lily had taken my hand.
We were outside, heading home. It was past working hours, but it was not quite dark yet. I could see so much. The sun's last rays tainting the sky orange, the lights turning on... None of that mattered.
I grabbed on to her because I could. I laughed. I was happy.
But then I got so afraid that I was actually dreaming and it all had been an illusion. Lily asked for more than a date, she asked if we could date, as in long-term, as in more than once, as in dating and I thought that I had gone crazy, maybe fallen down the stairs but no; Lily was blunt like that, she was stubborn and straightforward and maybe a little bit nuts as well at this point.
But she held me up as I wept happy tears because I was both so scared and so happy. I never thought that the fear that some reality could actually slip away was so real. I was legitimately scared that I would wake up from a dream. The weight in my stomach and the butterflies in my heart were undeniable.
I felt tears on my shoulder and I knew that she was crying as well. She was holding me as tightly as she could and was sharing this moment with me.