Author: Sonia M. Rompoti
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The Move
Moving day was a disaster, which was not unexpected. Three things broke, one of which was irreplaceable and two of which she had specifically said to handle with care. The weather turned at noon. One of the friends they’d enlisted disappeared for an hour without explanation and returned with sandwiches, which was both maddening and…
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Why We Fall in Love With People Who Make Us Laugh
There are attractive people. Then there are people who make you laugh so hard you accidentally snort your coffee. If you’ve ever experienced both, you’ll know something funny (pun absolutely intended): the second person usually wins. It’s one of the strangest things about attraction. Someone can walk into a room looking like they stepped off…
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The Language Class
He’d been learning Portuguese for eleven months. He hadn’t told her why. The classes were Wednesday evenings — he’d said it was for work, which wasn’t entirely a lie because he did have clients in Lisbon, but it was a lie in the way lies are when they’re protecting a surprise. He told her on…
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Summer Romance at its Best: Why Do We Still Think About Someone We Only Knew for Two Weeks?
Raise your hand if you’ve ever been minding your own business, folding laundry or standing in the supermarket trying to decide whether you really need another iced coffee, when suddenly your brain goes: “Remember that guy you met on holiday eight years ago?” Excuse me? I don’t remember where I left my sunglasses ten minutes…
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The Hard Morning
She was not a morning person. This was known. Established. Documented in ways both gentle and forensic. She was, as Kieran had once put it with great diplomatic care, *pre-verbal before nine.* He had adapted. He always had coffee made. He didn’t ask questions until the second cup. He learned to read her half-awake signals…
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Anniversary
They’d stopped doing traditional anniversaries around year three. Not because they’d stopped caring — but because they’d realized they both quietly hated the pressure. The restaurant reservation, the gift that was supposed to mean something, the expectation of a feeling that was supposed to arrive on cue. What they did instead was simpler. Every year,…
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Hands
She noticed his hands before she noticed him. That wasn’t entirely true — she’d noticed him, obviously, the way you notice a person who fills a room without trying. But what she kept coming back to, afterwards, were his hands. The way he used them when he talked, calm and precise. The way they’d looked,…
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The Commute
He called her on his commute home every Tuesday. Not because anything happened on Tuesdays. Not because of any plan or agreement. Just because Tuesday was the day he’d first called her, three years ago, when they’d been new and finding their rhythm, and it had become a thing without becoming a *thing*. The call…
Sonia M. Rompoti, MSc, Bsc 