12 Things I Love About You

The press is supposed to be empty when I open it. Clean bed, no paper, no surprises. That’s the whole point of routine: it’s a little lie you can lean on.

Tonight, there’s a sheet of thick cotton paper laid dead center beneath the platen, perfectly squared, like somebody cared enough to measure. The title is set in clean, confident type.

12 Things I Love About You.

For a second my throat forgets its job. I tell myself it’s a mistake, that I’m so tired I’m reading a print sample like it’s a confession. Then I see the ink is fresh, still glossy at the edges where the rollers didn’t quite kiss it dry.

I don’t touch it right away. My fingertips are already stained black, and this feels… private. Ridiculous, maybe. Paper is paper. But my whole shop smells like oil and cotton and the faint bite of solvent, and suddenly it feels like the air is listening.

My phone buzzes on the composing table. 11:47 p.m. Twelve minutes until the grant committee’s final email decides whether my lease lives or dies. Twelve minutes until I find out if I’ve been printing my heart into other people’s wedding invites and baby announcements for nothing.

I read the first line.

1. You talk to machines like they’re stubborn dogs.

My mouth opens. Closes. Because I do. I do it when I’m alone, when I don’t want anyone to hear how soft I get.

I scan down.

3. The way you bite your chipped tooth when you’re trying not to cry.

That is not public information.

The loading door rattles once, twice. A knock I know without meaning to. Theo doesn’t knock like he’s asking permission. He knocks like he’s checking in.

I hear his voice through the thin glass. “Mina? You still in there?”

I should answer like normal. I should slide the list into a drawer, pretend it’s nothing, finish the last portfolio prints for the grant packet, and let midnight do whatever it’s going to do.

But the shop is small, and Theo’s presence fills it before he even steps inside. My pulse is already acting like it remembers his hands on my waist from the last time we stopped pretending we were only friends.

The door handle turns. I stand with the paper between my palms, feeling the faint raised bite of the type, and whatever I do next is going to change what we are by morning.