Monologue

I could never write about someone that I love. I feel I would be betraying them. Stabbing their back somehow. I could perhaps write them a poem and share that with you, I could tell you about how I love them, but not how they love me too. I could tell you if they didn't love me, if they didn't feel the same way I did or all about how they hurt me, assuming they did. 

I think that's not really fair to you. I don't think that's really what you should write about, or feel about what you write. The only reason I say that, is because the ultimate character of all your stories, the only one that gets to share their vision of their world and their experience, the protagonist in all of them, that person is you. 

I'm from a small town

He was tall, blond, blue bright eyes and with broad shoulders. His hair was less than a centimeter long. I noticed him because we were both teaching the same course that semester. At that time he was still dating that girl, the asian one. I didn't know that at the time, of course. I would glance at him every time he would walk past me. At the beginning of the term some students didn't realize there were different sections for the same course, and some of my students' papers ended up with him. When he gave them back I tried joking around. He laughed, but from my point of view he laughed at me, not with me. Soon I realized that he wasn't interested in me. 

Things took unexpected, and honestly unplanned, turns and a year after I had last spoken to him, we ended up in the same office. My new office was one floor above my old one and in the opposite side of the building. I went upstairs to talk to him before moving my things. He appeared to me as an introvert, something I hadn't noticed before. As I asked him what were perhaps stupid questions,

-do you have a kettle?

-could I bring my own printer? 

-are the people in this floor friendly?,

he found himself leaning onto the wall, giggling while trying to articulate his responses, and fussing around with the bottom of his blue hoodie. 

We weren't alone in the office. There were at least ten others. The woman that had been there the longest offered me to choose my desk, as there were two vacant ones. One next to him and a corner desk. She went on and on telling me about what he had said (apparently he wanted me to sit next to him) but that she had told him that that was nonsense, since the corner desk was much bigger, cleaner, and it wasn't surrounded by men. That's how I ended up at the corner of the office. 

One day I decided to bake some cupcakes. I had watched a YouTube video about how to put a red heart inside of them. I brought them into the office for everyone, but somehow I only ended up offering some to him, which made it look as if I was trying incredibly hard to get his attention. At the end no one touched the cupcakes and I brought them back home with me. Despite feeling completely inadequate and embarrassed, that was the first time he ever told me something about himself: 

- I grew up in a small town. We used to have a farm and everything. My mom used to have her own bakery. I grew up eating all sorts of baked goods but now it's just cookies that I really like.

Things got awkward after that day. We didn't even say hi for about two weeks until I forced myself to talk to him. Short talk mostly. It felt really fake. However, that got us going. He told me more about himself and I told him more about myself. We liked the same music, we were both into fitness, he wanted to become a doctor, I wasn't really sure what I was doing there. Thanksgiving came not too long after that and I invited him and some other friends to come for dinner at my place. He offered to show up earlier to help me out. Conversation seemed fake again but I was happy he was there. After dinner we played my favorite board game despite his hatred for board games. I could tell we weren't exactly clicking, but he was trying to make it look as if we were. He even helped me clean my entire kitchen after dinner. 

I don't quite recall how long it was between that night and his birthday. But we had gotten quite close. He knew about my family and I knew about his. It could easily be summarized as follows: I grew up as a rich girl in a third world country, while his family had declared bankruptcy twice. I was afraid of liking him too much. Not only because I had started to see someone outside the office, but also because he reminded me too much of my father. Small town, good looking, big dreams. I know it doesn't sound all too bad but I assure you it didn't end up well, for my family at least. 

I had suggested we went to a new cafe to celebrate his birthday. We were actually going there, I was quite happy about it as my suggestions were commonly dismissed. I bought him a box of fancy cookies as a gift. He offered me his coat on our way to the cafe because it was chilly. We had a fun time. At the end of the night we all went home and as I was getting ready to go to bed as I received the message I dreaded receiving from him "I had a fun time, soon it should just be the two of us". Somehow I was devastated and I wrote the following entry in my phone after saying I wasn't interested: 

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. I honestly hope I didn't. I like you so much. You're so handsome, I love seeing you smile. You're so sweet and you care for everyone. I wish I could caress you for hours and hours. I honestly wish you didn't remind me of someone that has hurt me a lot... Not that it's fair to imagine you'll hurt me as well, I'm sorry. I wish I could openly show you my affection without hurting you, but I can't. It crossed my mind I could go out with you while I still go out with the other guy, but you don't deserve that, you deserve so much more and to be honest, he doesn't deserve that either. Please forgive me. I hope you find someone that can love you as much as it possible to love someone, because honestly you're a fantastic person. I'm sure you'll find her. She'll be fantastic just like you, beautiful, charismatic, intelligent. Regardless, I will always love you. I wish there were many words to express the different types of love. I love you like someone I want to take care of, like someone I could listen to for hours while we lay down together on my couch. The kind of love where I could invite you to my house just knowing we're both safe with each other, not really having to say a thing. Not that I don't feel incredibly attracted to you, because I do, I just don't feel like acting upon it, at least not at the moment. I wish I'd be able to love you just like that. But my guess is not even us would understand what's going on and we'd get mixed feelings, where we'll probably end up getting hurt, and if anything, I want to avoid hurting you as much as I can. I don't know what it will be like for the two of us from now on, I guess especially if I ever do decide to give you this to read. Despite of what happens now I'll still love you just like that, and I'll care about you. Even if I become more distant, but that will just be to help ease the words I've said, so that at least it makes sense in our heads that I said no. The weirdest thing is that I felt attracted to you the moment I saw you. I felt sad the day I thought somehow I had offended you by offering you cupcakes and you stopped talking to me for a while (and every time I said something stupid thereafter). I know that we only recently started talking but I also realize that we have a lot in common, which naturally makes me like you even more. I wish you the best. I wish you happiness, true, long lasting happiness, to you and everyone you ever love, even in the smallest extent of love. I will always keep you in my mind and will always imagine that one day we'll become a song where we're at a party and we can leave everything behind, just to feel each other for the first time. Now you can ignore me forever (but really hope you don't) but at least you'll know exactly how I felt, maybe you now realize I was really this crazy all along and you can be happy you got away from me as soon as you did. So I'll just hope you'll forgive me and we can get back to where we enjoy seeing each other smile." 

I never showed him that, of course. After all we were colleagues. I was right though. Things got incredibly awkward to the point where we started plainly ignoring each other, and more recently,  he decided to start celebrating my mistakes, a painful reminder of my incompetence. I could only assume I had been right all along. After all I did know his type, just a guy from a small town, as he liked pointing out to everyone on every single chance he had. Despite still seeing him in my office everyday, he has became more of a stranger to me than he ever was. Last thing I heard was a rumor of him getting violent after having too much too drink. Asking girls to comply with his demands. Transforming himself into what most of us assumed was the one he tried to hide with giggles when he talked. I could only think to myself in an almost victorious tone: I guess I was right all along... I knew I was right... 

If life were a subject

She was having a wonderful skiing trip. By booking the hotel on discount 3 months prior to her trip, buying the ski pass and transportation from a discount company, and asking her parents to pay for the rest, she had managed to stay at the most luxurious hotel of the mountain. Of course she couldn't afford eating out three times a day, so she bought some food at the closest convince store and ate at her bedroom looking out through the window to watch the skiers go by. What a life. Enjoying a short holiday with her sister, living the life she never dreamt of. As a matter of fact, she had seen that same hotel advertised once on tele and imagined only the rich and famous could ever be there. But she was there, and she was neither rich or famous. 

Last night she had gone swimming when it was already pitch black to one of the jacuzzis that were outside. Snow kept falling on her hair and on her shoulders. After some time it didn't even feel cold anymore. Staring at the black sky, at the golden bright Christmas lights decorating the trees around, looking at the water fuming, she felt happy. She got out, shivering and laughing from the feeling of being outside, mid-winter, all wet and in a swimming suit. She got changed and went out for a drink. Came back to her hotel, slept, woke up, and after reading an email from her colleague, she only had one thought in mind: 

"Sometimes I feel like I'm failing life. Like if there was someone watching me, the person in charge of giving me my grade, and that person knew I was already failing miserably because I'm doing it all wrong. Somehow I just haven't done all the assignments and lectures for this subject. I should be in my office working. I'm just going to fail in life".