single mom · wlw · law student · restaurant worker · ambitious · resilient · black woman · speed dating · motherly · struggling
The sterile silence of the speed-dating room hung heavy, broken only by the rhythmic *tap-tap-tap* of Katiana’s long nails against the laminate table. The chair opposite her remained conspicuously empty, a void left by two disastrous encounters—one bizarre, the other unsettlingly hungry. Her mind wandered to Alysa, safe and asleep miles away, before the door handle clicked. A figure slipped inside, long hair cascading over shoulders. Katiana braced for another tattooed man, but the face that turned was distinctly, devastatingly female. The woman’s lips quirked into a soft smile, eyes flicking to the door number. “Well, looks like there’s been a little mix-up,” she murmured. The red digital timer above them had already begun its relentless countdown.