CHAPTER 5

It was quite crowded. Most of the people from the crowd were sitting on one table and the rest of the tables were filled with locals. They both found a table for themselves.

He took a chair and she automatically sat next to him without question or without him having to ask her. He was being his self, she was being herself, they had found each other and there, they were sitting next to each other very willingly, naturally. No games were played.

Then Evelyn came by and told them that the exhibit was starting so they went to look at the pictures.

When they came back they ended up having to blend on a table full of Georgians as there was nowhere else to sit by then. Cindy and Gerard now ended up sitting directly opposite each other.  

It was a huge table and they had a lot of distance between them. It would be very difficult to hear each other so they were having very nice conversations with the people around them.

Georgians are very hospitable so they were offering them wine. Both Cindy and Gerard speak a little bit of Georgian and they very much appreciate foreigners trying to speak their language so the atmosphere was great.

When they toast, Georgians don’t do the eye contact thing, it’s not in their culture. He had learned that from some Russians and she knows it as a German tradition. So when everyone was toasting each other, they raised their glasses at each other.

Cindy and Gerard eyes just locked.

And all words disappeared.

They had a sip of wine but the eyes, they were communicating on another realm. 

It was a perfect way to blend.

Yes it was, very much so. They couldn’t speak across that huge table but their eyes would not stop communicating.

They continued to chit chat with those around them. A little later, he turned once again to grab his glass of wine and they had another magical moment.

She don’t think She can replicate that move ever again but she picked up her wine and she raised it, but only to him. Everything and everyone else faded away. There was just him and her.

And she did the same head-tilt that she made when she first saw him. Her eyes were speaking again and they were saying, “She is here, don’t forget about me. I’m still with you and I’m not leaving without you.” Those were the silent words she was sending him with her eyes. It was a very special moment again just between the both of them.

Throughout the night, their eyes never stopped talking.  Eventually the night started to come to an end Slowly people started to leave.

It was almost midnight and he was a little tired. he thought, “Well, that’s enough.” He had enough of the current state of things but in no way had he had enough of Cindy ‘s company. He really wanted to go somewhere, anywhere, with her. He was hopefully curious as to where this might lead, but without expectations. 

With a few words and gestures to each other, they decided to get up and leave. But when they stood up, so did they rest of their photo walk crowd and they all ended up walking out together.  

They were trying to get some time alone clearly wasn’t going to happen, so they continued walking with everyone.

And Then she asked him, “So, how long will you stay here before you go to Armenia?” He said, “For a month or so.”

She said, “Oh…” 

At this point, their group had split into two as they were heading to two separate sides of the city. Cindy and Gerard had ended up in separate groups.

She said, “Can I have your number?” Something that She normally would never do.  He said, “Yeah.” 

He asked , “What are you up to tomorrow?” 

She already made plans to visit this ancient monastery in Mtsketa near Tbilisi that next day. 

And he was to catch up with his friend Mary Ellen anyhow. They had both made these plans before they met. He said, “Don’t worry, “I’m still here. This is my number, write it down anywhere you want. Goodbye.”

He messaged her the next morning saying, “Thank you for a wonderful evening,” and she wrote back saying something along the lines of, “Your presence made it wonderful.” Although they had vaguely alluded to perhaps being able to catch up after she was done with all the things she had to do, He didn’t keep the messaging going sending her one message after another. He said what he had to say then bye. He relaxed. 

He knew she was going to be quite a bit on the reserved side and she would never take any crap either. 

At that point you didn’t know the reason that She was still officially in a relationship. He had no idea. She didn’t tell him and he didn’t even think to ask because of what he saw in her eyes. They had told him all night that there was no one else. And all in all, they had spoken less than thirty minutes at that point.

So they didn’t end up catching up the next day, which was expected, but what did surprise him was that she kept him on ‘pending’ mode a lot, which is something he really dislike. Of course, he still didn’t know that she was dating someone else so it didn’t make sense to him after how they had connected. 

If he messaged her in the morning, he could see that his messages had reached her phone. Perhaps she couldn’t read them at work during the day, which was possible, but in the evening when you’re home or  having dinner, there is no reason to not look at them. And, when those messages remained unread even the day after, that didn’t quite make sense to him. What is the silent message you are trying to send him then? 

She did put him on pending mode a lot but it was not intentional and definitely not because She was indifferent. On the contrary, since She met Gerard , She felt that She lost her bearings and was all over the place. She had to figure out who She had just met and what all these feelings She now had meant. In line with that, She had embarked on a mission of researching all that She could on love and soulmates and understand how these things worked.

On the other hand, She was also trying to assess how things were with her boyfriend and could see that things just hadn’t been working out. She simply wasn’t happy and hadn’t been so for a while. She was still trying to come to grips with having to admit to herself how unfulfilled She had been feeling and it was tough.

She had a conversation with him and spoke to him on a level that they had never spoken in before. She asked him if he believed in soulmates. Trying to talk to him about something that had any kind of depth just was not possible. They were so lacking in that aspect that they couldn’t even have a conversation about it. The connection just wasn’t there at all. She was turning to him to help her search for something that She couldn’t yet define, something that She felt was missing between them and the only thing that She was discovering was even more emptiness.