sakhal|

He said I was different. You are different kind of woman, were his precise words. I just smiled, because I’d heard that before. However, I’d never heard the answer that satisfied my ‘Different? How?’
Men have told me that I’m quirky, eccentric, sweet, kind, expressive, fiery, intelligent, funny, cultured, ditsy, mysterious, a boho, a bap, bougie, down-to-earth, calming … In short, they’d describe my difference based on, I believe, the opposite attributes of women they’d dealt with; and they would only tell me things I already knew about me.
But he answered, “Somebody loved you. I can tell you’ve been loved.”
He said he saw it in my security and in the way I treated him. Citing other examples of how I wasn’t self-conscious about my quirks and inadequacies, I was mystified that he’d paid that much attention to me.
“I’m a writer,” he said. “I don’t see things like everyone else, at least [...]