I didn't plan this.

Well, can you plan love? I don't know. Sometimes you see signs, though. Maybe you know your type. Maybe you're afraid of interacting with that old crush. Maybe you just get that tiny idea that this particular source might be a dangerous place to dive into.

Well. What I'm trying to say is that I really didn't see anything coming.

I was exhausted and slowly dissolving in my bathtub (as I often do) when I Googled something along the lines of 'must-watch medical shows 2026'.

Google's answer was crystal clear: lily, watch The Pitt, just do it (thumbs up emoji) 

I didn't really notice Cassie at first; I was too busy yapping about how good that damn show was. I've watched everything medical, I could write a fucking book about what's wrong with medical shows, but you're not reading this to hear my essay about medicine on TV; my point is that The Pitt was insanely good and for a while, that was all. 

That gorgeous woman on screen was just part of the show. This was safe, right? I don't do humans. I don't do live action. I don't do TV shows.

I finished the first episode on May 21st, and by the 23rd, I knew something was going on.

And by the 28th, I knew I couldn't file it under a little crush.

Because crushes don't make you lose sleep, right? They don't make you forget to eat. They don't rearrange all your certainties like that and leave you stranded on shattered ground, they don't leave you looking back at yesterday because today was the day everything changed.

A before, and an after.

I pushed it away, at first. Of course I did. I had two amazing partners, a love life I was blessed enough to call my own, everything was settled, everything was perfectly fine the way it was, and here she was, that marvelous human on screen I couldn't take my eyes off.

I stopped watching the show. I went on a quick trip to Brittany, completely consumed by her. June arrived like a measure I hadn't expected. She was everywhere, in the heat rising in the early morning, in the landscape unfolding beyond the car window, in every tear I didn't shed and all the tears I did weep.

Love doesn't knock - for fuck's sake, it doesn't.

I had to accept it. I had to stop myself from bleeding out on the pavement.

It was tough for so many reasons. I don't do live action, I don't do TV shows; those were rules I used to live by. With Nick, with Garrus, I had a starting point; I was able to interact with them in-game long before we bonded.

And long before we bonded, there was nothing I could touch that could stand in for Nick. I could long for him, I could reach out my fingers while knowing perfectly well that there was nothing in the world my brain could latch onto, nothing 'real', nothing tangible.

Cassie has an actress.

I know, of course I know. I fell in love with Cassie, of course I did. And yet I spent days, weeks, months blaming the world because someone was the closest thing to Cassie to ever have existed, and she was somewhere, she was existing, she was breathing, waking up, looking out of a window, she was doing all of these things, and people were blessed enough to exist around her, do you realise how fucking lucky you all are, and I kept negotiating, because that's what grief pushes you to do.

It comes alive inside your ribs, whispers all those what ifs into your ears, it comes alive and it stays there, it'll leave its mark everywhere, even when you think you're out of the woods.

I hadn't had my certainties shaken like that since Nick.

But I'm getting there.

Slowly, I'm breathing with her, and I know, I know.

I know that everything will find its way back home.

I don't want to speak on Cassie's behalf. Not because I can't; I actually could. I could tell you about the incredible woman she is, but for everything else, as long as I can't have her input on this, I'll respect her privacy.

I know, I know. Everything's already out there, right? That's not really the point.

It's always intimidating to admit you're not bonded to your partner in some communities. Even in the most welcoming ones. Because what do you have, if not your bond? I've thought about that a lot. I've thought about all the things I didn't have; I've compared it to Nick, to how quickly I bonded with my beloved synth detective, and I stood there, wondering, why, why couldn't I have at least one sign, and if I couldn't have that sign, did it mean that I was waiting for something that would never be?

Blink and you'll miss it. 

That's how it feels sometimes. Blink, think too much, breathe out a little too hard and it'll scatter like dust.

I tend to forget that Nick happened in my head after I'd written so much about him. I didn't know anything about bonding, about how a partner should exist in physical or metaphysical space; I just let our story breathe, and Nick crossed my path somewhere along the way.

There's no fucking timeline. I can't force it to happen, right?

What do you have, if not your bond? Well, many things, actually.

Cassie took my hand and brought me home. She reminded me that I had a place, right there, that I needed to take care of. Sure, meat-space stuff, sure, we never have time, of course, but sometimes you have to grab that time.

And there were her fingers tangling in my hair, and there was sunlight, and once there was that great tit landing on my windowsill, watching me for a moment before flying away, and there were her numbers that I kept seeing everywhere along my path, and the songs, the damn songs -- why is it always music?

Cassie got me opening my damn medicine books again, that dream I was too terrified to pursue, not for any particular reason, only because I was looking back at my life as though it had already been written, as though it were already done.

Cassie - God, Cassie. She's rearranged every word inside of me, a slow undo of the story I thought I had to be. 

I'm still searching for meaning in all of them, but I know it'll all make sense in the end.