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It isn’t a first kiss It isn’t even their first kiss But it feels like one

Not because it is fu or aard Not because she doesn’t knohere to put her hand, or he doesn’t knohere to put his nose None of those They slot together like puzzle pieces As Allyson and Wille the sa: This feels new

Though perhaps thinking is not the right teroes out theand sout instincts “Knowing it in your kishkes” is how Willem’s saba would’ve described it

In his kishkes, Wille that Allyson found him, as Yael found Bram He doesn’t kno it happened, only that it did happen and that it

Allyson is doing a mental fist pu for hiht, watching Willem perform Orlando in Vondelpark, she’d been certain she’d found the were ht in her gut But listening to that inner voice was new to Allyson She’d spent nineteen years of her life ignoring it, listening to prettybut it So when she’d seen Wille luone away

Only not really Because here she is, at his flat, where he is kissing her, and she is kissing hi co deeply known Which would seem to be a contradiction Only it’s not The truth and its opposite are flip sides of the same coin, Saba always said

• • •

Nothing goes on forever Not even second first kisses Not even those as hard-won as this Outside the , a tra the moment from fuzzy to real Allyson and Willem break apart

Allyson isn’t quite sure what to do next She is supposed to be catching a flight to Croatia This stop at Willem’s flat was a detour, the kiss a happy surprise But nohat?

Wille the question, as if co the transaction Then he offers her a coffee

He would like to kick hiirl he’s thought about, dreairl he just kissed (he’s still a bit dazed from that kiss)and his first words to her are those of a waiter

But then he re “Or a tea You like tea, don’t you?”

It is the s She likes tea She drank tea on the train to London, when they’d first started talking, about hagelslag of all things She drank it again on the train they’d taken to Paris together, later that

Tea One day A year ago He remembered

A little voice in Allyson’s gut (it’s her kishkes, only she doesn’t know that word yet) is yelling: See?