Sonia M. Rompoti, MSc, Bsc

He called her *starling*.

Not always. Mostly when she was being particularly herself — too much, too loud, too wide-open with her feelings in a way she’d spent her twenties apologizing for. He’d look at her across whatever room they were in and say it like an observation. *Starling.*

She’d asked him once, early on, where it came from.

“They flock together,” he’d said. “Thousands of them, all moving the same way at the same time. No one giving orders. Just — knowing.” He’d shrugged. “You’re like that with people. You walk into a room and everyone turns.”

“That’s not always a compliment,” she’d said.

“It is when I’m the one watching.”

Elise thought about this while standing in the middle of a crowded party, her cheeks warm from wine and conversation. She was mid-laugh when she felt it — the particular weight of someone’s attention. She turned.

Nico was standing by the bookshelf across the room. Not watching her in the possessive way she’d known from other men. Watching the way you watch something you love. Like it gives you pleasure just to observe it being itself.

She excused herself from the conversation and crossed the room.

“Starling,” he said, quietly, when she reached him.

She took the glass out of his hand, had a sip of his drink, and handed it back.

“Take me home,” she said.

He set the glass down on the bookshelf and found her coat before she’d finished the sentence.

That, she thought, is what it means to be known. Not just loved. Known.

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✦  Today’s Reflection

What is a quality in your partner that they might see as a flaw but you see as something you love — and have you told them why?