When she walked in, I was in the other room listening to the staff introduce the equipment. There were maybe twenty or thirty people in the space. I followed the crowd out and saw her walk in. Her hair was loosely draped over her shoulders, the ends streaked with gold. Her eyeliner lifted the corners of her eyes, making her already feline gaze even more captivating and bright. She wore a black cardigan, a white T-shirt, and printed pants—completely mismatched pieces that somehow didn’t clash on her. She had on tiny silver earrings, subtle enough to miss if you weren’t looking, yet quietly alluring. Her whole demeanor was loose and casual, but her presence was intense. When her gaze swept past me, I felt exposed.

Her nose was small, her mouth slightly upturned, a little pouty—she looked soft. Her eyebrows were thick and untamed, her chin lifted and sharp, not quite the chin of an East Asian face. Her features, put together, formed a kind of contradiction, a natural tension. Bright and wild, yet careless. I don’t quite know how to describe it—she was good at blending into the crowd, but would suddenly snatch your attention at the most unexpected moment. It felt intentional, the way she hid; it felt accidental, the way she stood out. There was a kind of detachment about her, a loose thread. She didn’t follow the rhythm of the room, but her own. And though she seemed out of sync, there was a logic, a rhythm, to the way she moved—fluid and seamless.

She wasn’t skinny, but not fat either. Her oversized T-shirt completely obscured any body shape, and her pants were loose and slouchy. She wore canvas sneakers. And yet, even like this, she radiated a wildness. Beneath her seemingly effortless exterior, there was something quietly meticulous. She looked like a doll, wearing little boy’s clothes—messy, a bit grimy, with what looked like cat-scratch marks on her face. I don’t know how to explain the feeling I had when I first saw her. It was like my heart collided with something.

She was late and carried a faint scent of weed. Her gaze drifted. We were all in another room, and she started pulling books off the shelves and reading on her own. She wasn’t just flipping—she was reading. Frowning, pouting, tilting her head. Eventually she gave up with a frustrated sigh, put the book back, and eyed another. I couldn’t help but smile. I stood about ten meters away, pretending to listen to the workshop, but my eyes were all on her.

At lunch, she’d already started drinking. I couldn’t help steering the conversation toward her. I was too curious. Who was she, beneath that exterior? She talked about films I’d never heard of, books I didn’t know. I found myself wondering—how much else does she know that I don’t? I’d always thought of myself as someone with a good memory, well-informed. But she kept overturning my expectations—not in contradiction, but in expansion. Her insights were sharp and clear, and somehow, they aligned with my instincts. It was as if I had the first 90% right, and she showed up with the final 10% that reshaped the whole thing. It was strange. My predictions were usually accurate.

Sometimes she seemed totally indifferent, as if nothing around her mattered. And other times, she’d display an unexpected depth in the most random places. I couldn’t help wondering: how does she understand the world? How does she feel it? Is her inner world anything like her outward one? My gut says no. I sense a contradiction: cold on the outside, burning within. I want to know—how hot is it, inside her?

She drank fast—so fast I didn’t notice her glass was empty until it was. She seemed picky about food, but made decisions quickly. While I was still reading the menu, she’d already ordered. She always knew exactly what she liked and didn’t like. It was as if nothing could sway her, and she didn’t care about what others thought. That’s just how she was, as natural as breathing. She would quietly complain when food wasn’t good, but also genuinely enjoy McDonald’s. Things I thought couldn’t coexist did, in her. It was like the mental models I used to understand people stopped working. My brain short-circuited—but I was deeply intrigued.

She didn’t read fiction, only nonfiction—on serious topics: war, politics, history. How language enables war, how people from different sides are manipulated and divided. These were topics I’d never cared about. She was my opposite: if I was the moon, she was the sun; I moved up, she moved down; I headed east, she went west. Watching her meander out of sync with the pace of the crowd, I found myself slowing down, too—studying every book she picked up, walking the same paths. What is she thinking? Ah, so that’s what she’s thinking. One of our friends decided to leave, but I wanted to stay. I wanted to get dinner.

For some reason, she ordered another drink—this time, a beer. Watching the satisfaction on her face, I suddenly wanted to drink too. I asked if I could have a sip of hers. She pushed the glass toward me without hesitation. She didn’t resist my presence. That’s when I started talking about my ex. She didn’t seem surprised at all by the topic shift—maybe she was tipsy by then. She’d been drinking all day and munching on edibles the whole time. I kept talking, explaining my MBTI. I asked, do you like my personality type?—but what I really meant was, do you like me? I wanted to see her again. I don’t know if she caught my meaning. I just knew I didn’t want to go to the event I had planned that night. I wanted to stay here. Talk nonsense with her. Watch her little expressions, her tipsy look. Talk until the restaurant closed, until the whole city shut down.

We went to one bar, then another. To my surprise, I ate the edible she gave me. Summer nights in San Francisco are so gentle—the breeze brushed softly against me. I sat by the roadside, gazing at the streetlights. Quietly, I thought to myself: A story is about to begin.