All I wanted was for my mother to meet the woman I loved. But the moment my fiancée walked in, my mom froze like someone had stabbed her with memory. She screamed I wasn’t allowed to marry my girlfriend and revealed a truth that tore through more than just my heart.

Ever believe in love at first sight?

I never did… until Nancy dropped her wallet right at my feet on the downtown metro. I’m Edward, Eddie to everyone who knows me.

I’m 30, a graphic designer by day, an aspiring artist by night, and apparently terrible at reading the signs the universe throws at me.

“Oh God, I’m such a klutz!” Nancy muttered, scrambling to collect her scattered cards.

I crouched down, handing her a credit card. “Hey, at least you didn’t drop it on the tracks. That would’ve been a real Monday morning disaster!”

She looked up, and I swear the fluorescent lights dimmed.

Her laugh was genuine, the kind that makes you forget you’re packed into a metal tube with 50+ strangers.

You always this optimistic about other people’s catastrophes?” she asked, tucking a strand of silky hair behind her ear.

“Only when they involve beautiful women and happy endings!”

The metro screeched to my stop, but I didn’t move. Neither did she.

“Coffee?” I asked. God, I was so nervous.

“I’d like that,” she said, and something in my chest loosened for the first time.

I’d heard people talk about butterflies my whole life. I thought it was just some cute way to describe nerves.

But sitting there, watching Nancy tuck a strand of hair behind her ear again, I finally got it. It wasn’t nerves.

It was hope. It was what they called… love at first sight.

Eight months later, I was on one knee in Redwood Park with a ring that cost me three months’ rent.

Nancy’s hands flew to her mouth, tears streaming down her cheeks, before I even finished fumbling with my speech.

“Yes!” she whispered. “Yes, yes, of course yes!”

We were inseparable from day one. Nancy worked as a teacher at an elementary school in Brookfield and had this way of making everything feel lighter.

When I’d come home stressed about a client or a painting that wasn’t working, she’d put on old jazz records and dance around our tiny kitchen until I couldn’t help but join her.

“Your mom’s going to love me, right?” She asked one evening, curled up against me on our secondhand couch.

The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.