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 Three months have passed since last time we met. Last week I saw you at a distance, you were walking with a friend. Suddenly you turned and noticed me. You looked at me for a brief instant, surprised, and then the trees of the avenue came between us.
As you came into sight, so you disappeared. I would have liked to smile at you, reach you, say hello... I simply didn't move. Not because I was frightened, on the contrary, I felt good. I was happy. It hadn't happened to me for ages, perhaps I had never felt so good in my whole life as in that moment.
I'm thinking about everything that happened between us. Or maybe it would be better to say everything that didn't happen. I'm sitting at the same table of the café, with my usual notebook before me and the usual pen in my hand, at the same time you usually walked down this street to go to work. Some habits are difficult to change. And anything that tries to alter them becomes a threat in our eyes. There was a time when you represented this threat. Perhaps we were it one for the other. One step forward and two back. Torn between the desire to discover the new and the will to remain anchored to our small certainties.
I know I literally ran away when that morning you came into the café and smiled at me. I had yearned for that smile for days, weeks, and when it formed on your lips I believed I didn't want it anymore. I coldly looked away, collected my things and went away. A part of me was urging me to stay and return that small gesture. I had not been able to. I regret it, but not too much. If I had done it, now I know, I would have ruined much more.
They say time settles everything. I guess it's true. We need time to understand and accept changes, to let them drift us towards new shores without opposing resistance. We need time to learn to face all the possible consequences.
You don't walk down this street anymore. I was told that you moved to another house. It's strange to come back in this café every morning and to know that I won't meet your eyes. I find myself gazing at the street, as if I expected to see you. I know it won't be so. I become sad, because little by little you have become part of those private joys that make our days special.
I have no idea of when I'll see you again, but I know it will happen, there's no doubt about it.
I wait. It's hard, each day even more, but in this waiting I've learnt to accept your presence in my life and the fact that I cannot do without it.
It can seem ridicule after all this time, but courage is an attitude that not always is innate: it is necessary to learn it, like anything important in our lives.
And today, I believe it's finally become a part of myself.
Yes, I've decided, next time I will reach out to you, I will say hello and will present you with that smile that my heart have longed to give you for so long.
And everything will appear to have happened in a little while.
Story Info
- Story written by Marta, 2004
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