Chapter 0002

Abel

There is always something about people falling in love with each other over and over again that doesn’t make sense to me. Like how can someone just love one person without getting bored? I do know love makes people happy, and that’s why I kind of always advise my friends to chase it if I see that it is their happiness.

I have always been the kind of person who never truly believed in love, leave alone love at first sight. I had never thought for the life of me I would land my eyes on a woman for the first time and not only feel sexual attraction but also feel the butterflies in my stomach. Let’s be clear here, this is me, and I never have those kinds of feelings. The heart racing, the falling in love, and stuff, that’s just not me, let’s not even get started with the commitment that comes with loving someone. That is the kind of thing that I would have never thought of considering. I would rather we hook up once and if we happen to like whatever that is, then we can hook up a couple of more times, but that’s just about it.

Then I met her.

It is kind of crazy that the moment I set my eyes on her I was blown away. I have seen my own share of beautiful women my whole life but something was outstanding about her. I can’t exactly tell what it was, because she never came off as extremely gorgeous or sexy perse. I wasn’t blown away in a kind of way like my friend Tobias when he met Clarice. To him it was sexual attraction first, with me, it wasn’t. I thought she was beautiful, but I didn’t feel like I had been feeling with the other women, the kind of attraction where we want to tear off each other’s clothes. Instead, it was just pure and the moment I felt that I knew I was fucked.

The one thing that I had been so scared of was happening and it was scary.

I wanted to keep talking to her. I knew I would probably be rejected if I tried to make my stupid flirtatious moves on her, and since I knew I wasn’t ready to deal with the massive crush that I had instantly developed for her, I chose to be casual about everything. Chat with her every time I see her.

The first time was at Clarice’s company, and I have to say when Tobias had mentioned her to me prior I didn’t think much about it, but since Clarice was a beautiful woman, I knew without a doubt her friend would be pretty, and I wasn’t disappointed. Then we had a chat about nothing in particular. I asked her about the job she was looking for and she said she was still undecided if she would be staying in town. She was looking for offers outside town but couldn’t tell me why she had decided on that. I didn’t bother to ask though. Our company didn’t have any vacancies at the time and I knew I wouldn’t be of any much help. But I still gave her my card and asked her to call me, so that I could get her number just in case I heard of a vacancy anywhere. She never called.

Months later, it was Toby’s birthday, the same day he proposed to Clarice, and while I was busy flirting with one of the waiters hoping I would get a girl for the night, I saw her.

She looked beautiful.

She looked so full of life and I know I had only seen her once before, but she looked different, happy even. So I went over to her and we talked about anything and everything. When the party was over and the night got deafening quiet, we still wanted to hang out. We still wanted to chat. It was beautiful and weird.

It was crazy, because never in my life have I ever held a conversation with a woman for hours if it didn’t involve me trying to seduce them to go home with me.

She told me she had moved to a town a couple of hours from ours. She had started her new job and everything was fine. I remember us even joking about her inviting me over to see how she was doing at her new place. It felt like a joke, but deep down I was hoping she would actually invite me.

“No, but seriously, you should do a housewarming party and invite us, your friends,” I said, feeling stupid for even considering myself her friend. She chuckled and blushed and moved to tuck a piece of braid behind her ear. A move I wished I could have been the one to do.

“It’s just a studio apartment, which is barely furnished; nothing is interesting about me inviting people over.” She sipped on her wine and I just loved how it matched the color of her lipstick.