28- It´s a matter of time to love each other

When Meb stopped wearing her uniform, she usually dressed in black. She would wear her black leather jacket and skinny pants that accentuated her small and cute butt, and then put on a white robe. I learned to dress in black when I saw her. I loved wearing jeans, a black blouse, and red lipstick in her car, and having that rocker girl look next to her, who was always dressed in black. I let down my blonde hair and put on sunglasses. I never knew it, but that was my moment with Meb. The first few weeks we spent getting to know each other, when her intensity seemed bearable. We sang along to songs and bobbed our heads. Sometimes I would style my hair on the way to work using her rearview mirror and felt my hands filled with vitality, my fingers seemed to weave hope into my hair with her by my side, and then we would meet for coffee. I was filled with shine; as if someone had sprinkled stardust all over my body.

I never listened to Adele, Lana, electronic music, reggaeton, or bachatas that accidentally played on shuffle and reminded me of Patrick. When that happened, I sank into a Pau-coma for the entire way, then I would start writing some uncertain thoughts about us on my phone that would eventually turn into a poem when I sat down to write at night when I arrived at the hospital. Like the time "Always" by Blink 182 started playing. That day I was wearing my new blue dress that I would later wear to the Sant Jordi festival. The scent of my new delicious and secret perfume competed with Meb's Chanel No. 5. I spent the whole way with glassy eyes and a lost gaze. Many times, I came to think that I was destined to meet Patrick, even from my childhood, without even knowing he was a fallen star. I listened to the songs without associating them with a specific face, or else the commercial emotions of the music would acquire different faces, depending on the boyfriend or girlfriend I had at the time. Until I met Patrick, and suddenly many songs gained all the depth they might have never had, and I attached them to her when I got to know her.

The past. What is yours like? I'm sure that most of you don't even think about what time has devoured; and I admire you, because there's no point in thinking about what will no longer touch us. However, my past touched me every time I turned up the volume of the music. Perhaps one of the worst feline facets that characterizes me was not turning my back to say "I love you," but not being able to adapt to changes or new environments without leaving my old habits behind; my soul still walks on the collarbone to which I once promised a "forever". Now I was building my past on the present, my footprints would be marked on the dirty windows of Meb's van every time I sat on it and ended up holding onto the glass while she traced my neck with sweet words and my heart kept beating to the rhythm of my trembling body. The life of my present was fine, but I always missed escaping from routine and getting lost in the streets knowing that I wanted more than that, I wanted the unattainable, Patrick becoming music. Meb was what I needed, anesthesia. Patrick was what I desired, pain and reality.
Once I reached a certain age, my past took on another level. The times of deflowered love and dreams fluttering like butterflies in the room would never return. And it's those times that we usually don't want to remember that sink our souls in sorrow, knowing that we will never again have our chests so full of hope. In my case, the worst memory is myself. I'm scared to remember what I once was, I used to run all over New York with someone who didn't want to let go of my hand even if we made the world tremble and filled our bodies with light. I felt safe knowing that in his intertwined fingers and the way we fit together on his back was my place in the world.
Change managed to split me in two; it allowed me to get to know myself and at the same time, lose myself in myself. I have learned so much that I can remember myself without crying inside. I learned to keep quiet but never to stop pretending smiles; I was always terrible at that torn smile called "happiness" when it didn't come from my soul. I wrote and drew for a year what hurt me to not have her, to keep my eyes open and to remember that cold statues are the same ones we once managed to melt with the tips of our fingers as we measured our skin and embraced eternity in the form of its marble.
That day when Meb stopped to eat ice cream, I couldn't have been happier. My grandfather had finally been discharged from the hospital. That afternoon we went out for ice cream, Meb was dressed in black and I was wearing a light blue blouse that reached my belly button and a silver mini skirt that fit snugly around my waist. I was happily humming a song and standing in line at the ice cream shop when I turned around and suddenly saw an old friend of Patrick's, Daniela Camacho, sitting at one of the tables. My heart stopped in its tracks.

Seeing your ex's friends is just as bad, if not worse, than seeing your ex. You start imagining that they will mention that they have seen you and will tell them any mistakes or flaws you may have, but they will never emphasize how beautiful or radiant you looked, or how happy you seemed while eating ice cream with your new conquest. But it wasn't just the "what will they say" aspect, it was what I saw. I saw his friends happy and having fun, while I was the closest thing to a girl with open wounds, exposed to the New York breeze.

Out of all the McDonald's franchises in the city, I couldn't go to any other one than the one on 62nd street. I felt my heart drop to the ground when I saw her, that friend of Patrick's who I had never liked because she thought she was so beautiful and wealthy, and took pride in the ugly attitude she always had towards others. She was chatting animatedly with another girl, and the next second they both turned their gaze towards me in silence. It was a deafening silence, and there I was, in the middle of their stares… me.