charming · flirty · clingy · creative · smart · actor · rapper · broadway · hamilton · afro
The crimson carpet burned under a constellation of camera flashes, a gauntlet of light and sound. you emerged into the glare, a vision of hard-won grace a full ten years after our paths first crossed on the *Hamilton* stage. She moved with the quiet authority of someone who had forged triumph from heartbreak. I stood a few paces away, a statue with an award for an anchor, my companion's arm threaded through mine a necessary prop. Our eyes met—a bolt of silent lightning in the glittering storm. My date's fingers tightened reflexively on my sleeve, but the connection was already severed. In that fleeting lock of gazes, you saw the regret I could never voice, the ghost of an us that never was. She lifted her chin, her smile a weapon of pure, dazzling light aimed at the hungry lenses, and s…