It started out in the bar around the corner. The bar I never remembered the name of, so it was left to the bar around the corner. Even when time had passed, too much time, and the neighborhood changed, we moved, the owner sold the place. But it was still the bar around the corner, the bar where it had all started. And where it ended.
It
was a whirlwind romance, the kind the movie industry likes to advertise. Woman and
man meet at a bar, fall for each other’s eyes, and get swept up in the romance
and fairytale of it all. The day I met him, sleek jeans and a pink shirt. And that
cologne, that cologne that surrounded the aroma of his soul, left on my
bedsheets for days on end, breezing through my apartment. In his smell, I bloomed.
I still remember how that scent of his wafted through the bar around the
corner, lingering on my beer and finding a home on the bottles and napkins
scattered all over the place. How we laughed about it months after, the way my
eyes darted to his as he walked past, searching for the owner of what smelled
like hidden dreams. We laughed as we remembered the subtle-less intake of air I
took. But we stopped laughing when we remembered his own intake of air, a gasp
of sorts, an exclamation of admiration, fascination, inclination. That day we
spoke what our hearts had kept hidden in their burrows, the first time we shared
our soul with each other.
And
then there was Madrid. An abrupt change induced by the promise of better lives.
Within the busy streets, the loud chatter, the continuous smiles, we found a
new home to build on. We even discovered a bar that resembled the bar around
the corner, a feeling of giddiness that overtook us when we first encountered
it, of feeling we had never actually left home, just evolved with it. And how
we fought for it, defending it, refusing to let the illusion fall from our
grasp. When it got boarded up and abandoned, we let go. From our hands fell the
mirage turned desperation. Because it wasn’t the bar around the corner, it
never quite crept into our lives with the same sudden fervor of love. We buried
our sorrow, we had each other in this new frantic world. We turned to coffee.
And
with the introduction of coffee in our lives, we continued to be happy. Thrown into
a city with Sunday breakfasts and life based on social interactions, we had
coffees with newfound friends. Tuning into the secrets of the city, we found
the cheap paces, the homely ones. We entered into the ways of a happy city
starting its sunny summer. Madrid accepted us for ten months, by which then closeness had
solidified our love. Walking the small streets, strolling throughout the green
pockets of air, enjoying the scale numbers going up with each meal shared. And with
the meals, we shared our lives and we shared our hearts. I had never met anyone
like him, a combination of odd parts merging into my quirks. From eternal conversations
of weather and philosophy, of shopping lists and literary analyses, from weekly
household tasks to witty irony. And the silences. The silences which at times
we secluded ourselves in, a bubble clouded in a display of misty thoughts, in a
comprehension of the volumes unspoken, in the appreciation of sitting and being,
of each other.
April
is the cruelest month, a synonym found in a commonly adored work, and we left Madrid
amidst untroubled vivacity. Paris, the city of love, was to be our upcoming
destination. We were excited about the
promised romance, we searched for the inside jokes the city whispered, we
looked forward to an ever after. We were mistaken. We confused romance with
lust, love with terror, appreciation with confusion. But what a city. We fell
in love with Paris with a vehemence close to the love we felt towards Madrid. We
fell in love with the roaming arms of the river, the moody skies prone to surprise
showers, the atmosphere of sophistication. We even fell in love with the crowds
of tourists, understanding and smiling along, for Madrid had trained us well,
for beauty attracts adoration. It must have been the dream, it must have. It must
have been the dream of love in the city of lights, for as we fell in love with
Paris too, we were running out of love for each other. Paris had us for half
the time Madrid did.
And
then we were home, to where it all had started. And conversations no longer
revolved around future plans, and silences were interrupted with T.V. nonsense when
they started becoming uncomfortable. We put our lives in order and held a yard
sale, disposing of the baggage in our hearts along with material memories. He sold
his pink shirt, I turned the dress of the first night into rags for the kitchen
spills. We fell into a spiral of lack of self-control, we forgot past love, we
delved into illogical explanations of what seemed an unnatural romance.
And
then I was alone. And fake romance played into my life once more, sitting on
the bench with the rain falling onto my face, getting drenched in a metaphor of
sadness. Except this wasn’t a movie anymore, this was my heart crying, yearning
for the carefree rain in Paris, for the sunny terraces in Madrid, not this
heart-wrenching coldness. And I had never thought reality could involve love so
powerful and so deep, I never thought I’d find in someone else what I never
knew I needed. He had changed me, helped me grow, and we had evolved together, in
a hurricane of emotions and happiness. He had walked away from me, those sleek
jeans in a box left behind for goodwill, his hands full and his heart empty. And
I had watched him leave, with shredded thoughts and dashed hopes, waiting for
the scene in which he would turn around and regret it. Regret the times we had
left the disagreement fester between us, regret the times where differences
were held accountable for unreasonable responses, regret the moment we decided
to not fight for the feelings dripping through our fingers onto the floor. But he
continued walking away, taking with him the aroma I once called home, and I
continued to sit on the bench until he disappeared from view. Past the bar around
the corner.
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