Close your eyes

I was finishing a can of cheap beer when the doorbell rang. I knew it was her, she always arrived ten minutes late to everything, after some time I simply learned to adjust my schedule ten minutes past the agreed-upon time. I opened the door. “Hi,” Miranda said while waving her hand nervously. We sat on the living room sofa. The lights were dimmed, the TV was off, it felt as if nothing bad could ever happen. “Are your parents home?” She asked. “Pediatricians summit,” I replied. “So?” I asked curtly. “So what?” She replied. “So why did you want to see me?” I asked dryly. “I can’t see my boyfriend now?” She replied. “Your boyfriend? I’m glad I still am, it doesn’t look like it,” I replied. “What the hell are you talking about?” She asked, annoyed. “Miranda, I know why you’re here, Josh heard it from principal Jenkins,” I said with a soft trembling voice. My eyes started to get wet, I could feel my eyelids doing their best to prevent a single tear from escaping. Miranda’s eyes looked exactly how I thought mine did. “Charlie,” she said hardly being able to speak. “I’m happy for you, you know that, you deserve that and more, you deserve the world Mimi, every single fucking inch of every good thing out there,” I said, now being able to feel some teardrops sliding down my cheeks. “I lov-“ she said but I interrupted her. “Don’t. Don’t say it, not now,” I said while placing my hand on her thigh. “I don’t even know if I’ll succeed, it’s still a one a million chance,” she said. “If there’s someone that will make it, that’s you, LA is going to love you,” I said with a smile. She jumped and hugged me, her tears started wetting my shirt. “So, who’s this big shot producer?” I said trying to delay the inevitable. “I’m not really sure, I mean, he’s legit and all, he said something about a teen’s show or something, he liked my voice after watching an Instagram post,” she replied wiping her tears, her eyes now visibly red. “Charlie, we could…I don’t know…try long-distance? Maybe?” Miranda said. “Mimi, I don’t want to distract you from your dreams, and let’s face it, you’ll have no problem finding a better-looking guy than me in LA,” I said. “But I want you, Charlie, I don’t know why you don’t even want to try,” she said, crying a little. “Because you deserve better, LA or not, you deserve a guy who drives you to Target to buy some weird kitchen contraption to make an Instagram recipe or goes to your house in the middle of the night because you feel lonely, or…or,” I said, then stopped to take a deep breath. “Or, tells you how beautiful you are every single fucking day because you’re and I just want to kiss your face and tell you how much I love you but I’m not that guy, I’m not,” I finished, crying. “Charlie….,” she said and kissed me. “I don’t want to see you leave,” I said. “I have to go,” she replied. “I know, I literally don’t want to see you leave, I’ll close my eyes and then you can go. Good luck Mimi, I’m proud of you,” I said as I slowly closed my eyes, seeing her face less and less with every fraction of an inch my eyelids got closer to each other. I waited for a second or two and said with a soft voice “I love you,” not knowing if she heard me or not.

© Gabriel Berm

Unrequited

Unrequited love
There’s never enough
To bring our hearts and minds to sorrow
To make us long for what might’ve been
For making us cry for what never was
Hoping for the solitude to come to pass
Thinking that we belong in someone’s arms
For misery and hope
are both sides of the same coin
It’s only dark because dawn is close

© Gabriel Berm

Mamihlapinatapai

Walking toward a hot dog joint nearby campus, I saw Andrea running toward the bus stop. The bus was already leaving, and she knew it. Once, the bus left without her, I walked fast towards her. 

“Andrea?” I said.

“Craig! It’s been ages! How are you?” She said, surprised.

“Right now, probably better than you,” I joked.

She laughed a bit. She was holding three heavy-looking biology textbooks, and her glasses were barely touching the tip of her nose.

“This is the second time this week. Now I have to wait 45 minutes to an hour for the next one,” Andrea said rather annoyed.

“I’ll keep you company if you want,” I said, begging every deity for her to say yes.

“You don’t have to,” she said, embarrassed.

I was starving, but something inside me was telling me to stay. In all fairness, it might’ve been the three coffees I had in the morning.

We sat on the bus stop’s bench.

“How’s been everything? How’s Michael?” I asked.

“Alright, I guess…and we broke up a few weeks ago,” She replied with a sudden sense of disappointment filling her face.

“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling bad for the fact that I was sort of happy because of that.

“Yeah, It sucks people still can’t break up before they cheat,” Andrea said now with a lower voice.

“I know, right? What’s the need for being in a relationship if you’re gonna cheat anyway?” I said, thinking about my ex-girlfriend Claire.

“It’s going to sound like a cliché, but I don’t know if I want to be in a relationship again,” she said without looking at me.

I was starring at her face, so beautiful. I couldn’t help but think who in their right mind would cheat on her. She was not just extraordinarily beautiful, but smart, perhaps the smartest person I knew.

“We all say that,” I replied.

Her eyes were slightly red, and a couple of tears were sliding down her cheeks. I dried them with my thumb wrapped around the end of my hoodie’s sleeve. She looked at me. I slowly took my hand away from her face. 

“Perhaps it would’ve been different if we…” She said without finishing.

“Perhaps,” I said.

My eyes were lost in hers and hers in mine. I moved my body closer toward hers. She smiled. Andrea started moving her hands toward my chest and leveled my hoodie strings.

“You’ve always worn them unevenly,” she said and smiled.

She got closer to me. Our heads were inches apart. Then a hideous rumbling noise and the smell of diesel became part of the scene. Andrea did the longest blink ever. The bus’ door opened with a creaking sound. We stood up. I helped her pick up her books and handed them to her, our hands touched for a second. She looked at me, and I looked at her, we stood there for what felt like an hour. Our heads were as close as they have ever been, then we hugged. She got on the bus, and as the bus’s awful sounds were less and less present, I kept thinking what would’ve happened if we kissed.

Author’s Note:

According to Wikipedia, Mamihlapinatapai is a word derived from the Yaghan language from Tierra del Fuego. The word is listed by The Guinness Book of World Records as the “most succinct word.” The general understanding of the word is “A look that without words is shared by two people who want to initiate something, but neither start” or “looking at each other hoping that either will offer to do something which both parties desire but are unwilling to do.”

© Gabriel Berm