It is a special sunny day; the intense warmth of the sun is impossible to avoid at five o’clock in this summer afternoon. There are no clouds today, not within 30 miles; the sky is blue, so blue that it seems that the whole universe is painted in the same color. It is as if the sky were nude. The breeze is so soft that it feels like Mother Nature herself is showing her affection. Spending the time in a park is a delicious choice: The shouts of the children playing in the grass; a bunch of boys playing soccer; the sound made by the skates; the voices of teenagers gathered in groups talking… Such a landscape can make anyone who sees it smile.
Near Avenida La Marina there are series of small parks, with the size of one or perhaps two blocks. The last of those parks has a green building at its end, and that green building is where my dearest dreams can be found. The whole happy picture of the park means nothing without that green building. There she lives, and that is where I am going. I am going home, just as Denzel Washington would say: “to blue lagoon”. I am going home and maybe this is the last time I do it: Tomorrow I will be on a plane heading north, and I will be going for a long time. However, I can not travel without visiting her one last time, maybe because I fear that this will be the last time I see Andreita.
We met in the eleventh grade of high school. Even though we were in the same class one whole semester, we started talking only at the end of it. Mainly because she was one of the smartest people in class; as a matter of fact she is one of the smartest people of her age I have ever known. It all started when she helped me with physics, until that date I had never met someone who has behaved so nicely with me, at least for the first time we ever talked. After that incident I used to go to her for almost every academic trouble I had. I hardly could believe the patience she had with me. I, too, tried to help her in everything I could, but that was almost nothing compared to her help towards me.
During the last weeks of that year we had more chances to interact with each other. She used to sit in the same place for an entire semester, and there were times that I got to sit next to her. Those days were unique. It seemed as all the fun I had during that year of high school was not compared to those days, not compared at all. She did not use to talk very much but once the conversation was on, we would both enjoy it.
At the end of that year I received the notice that I would have to travel to Africa and stay there to finish my studies. We said goodbye to each other with the feeling that something more had to happen. And so it did when the destiny told me that I could not stay in Africa, the only thing left to do was to comeback to do the last year of high school in Peru. Somehow I knew that our friendship was given a second chance and I worked hard on it, really hard. That is why it hurts to have to say goodbye to her.
She was so different from me; I still can not believe we have come all this way together yet. I think she is too woman for me, she has all the qualities a young lady of her age should have. She is so childlike; in her eyes I only see transparency. She smiles and all my problems go away, she is too sweet and tender. She knows she can get anything from me with her smile, everything except this last visit.
Ironically, this last visit is the first time I show up late. She is looking outside her window waiting for me; she lives in the third floor of a green building right in front of a park. I always liked going to her house. The bus stop is five blocks away from her building and those blocks are filled with a series of small parks. Walking through those parks used to take away any stress, they were the perfect way to start my disconnection from this world. Especially if I know that after those parks I get to be with her. But this time everything seems to be so strange and treacherous, every step that takes me closer to her home is challenging. I do not want to go on with the reality of this world, I do not want to accept the fact that I am traveling tomorrow. My courage is being tested as never before, at such a point that I fear it may fall. But I see her! I feel her tenderness encouraging me to keep going forward. Just to see her makes me able to feel the warmth of the sun. Just seeing her makes allows me to appreciate the wonder of the landscape in front of me. I feel me again.
Before the end of the eleventh year of high school where we started gaining trust on each other I used to be different. As a kid I considered myself as a good guy, but the opinion changed with the years and I was not sure if I was a good guy or a bad guy. Then I came with the conclusion that I am really neither a bad guy nor a good guy, I am just what a situation needs me to be. If the situation requires for me to I act following my moral values I will, but when the situation does not require them then I will not follow them. I often accommodated myself with the situation. But with her it was different, there was never a situation. I did not have to pretend or to hide anything. It just was her and me, and I loved those moments. Moments threaten to disappear forever.
I reach her building; it has a huge green grille at the back of it. I do not have to ring the bell, she knows it is me. I go on inside the building, up through the circled stairs until the third floor; there is small passage where at its end are two apartments. Both of them have brown doors but one of them has a black grille right in front of it, I know it is that one. It seemed it was yesterday the first time I entered into her house. We see each other and then she smiles at me; her little face turns into the first marvel of the world when she smiles at me. As soon as I see her I feel I have found the true me, when she smiles I feel I have found heaven. She shorted her hair and is wearing white pants and a blue t-shirt, she can wear anything and still she would look perfect. I greet her and her mom who is right behind of her.
Her apartment smells and feels like home. I feel disconnected to the rest of the world once I am in those walls. I feel as if there was no time within those walls painted in yellow. Once you have passed the door the first thing you will see at five or six more steps is the dinner table with its six chairs around it. At the left hand of the table there is the kitchen, -which I have not entered yet- I only have seen it from the outside. The television and the radio equipment are located just at the right side of the door in a big shelf. In front of that shelf and at the right of the dinner table there are three sofas, the softest sofas I have ever sat on. I try to see everything with great detail so I can remember forever.
Since the moment I decided to travel the course of my life headed a dark pathway. As the last day of stay in Peru approached my life came closer to that pathway. I am in her house for the last time, a new adventure have already begun. I am already in that dark pathway, but I am still near the star to be able to go back.
Inside us both try to imagine what the other feels. And at the same time we do our best to figure what are our own feelings. Even though I try my best to hide my sadness, I can not help feeling it. I think she notices it because she understands why. She knows what to do cheer me up. She knows how to encourage me to go on with this new course in my life; she knows she is the only one who can do it. If someone would ask me who is the stronger of the two of us I would just say that my strength comes from her, that she is my strength. She smiles at me and turns on the light for hope in this dark pathway in which I am in.
She smiled at me and now I feel able to manage all the feelings that were suffocating me. We sit down in her sofa, just like many other times before. I even can remember once her grandmother from Ica was visiting her and we could not sit on the same sofa. I was told that under the rules of her grandma it would have been inappropriate for us to sit together. It was really funny, I have never heard of such thing before. Sited both of us in the sofa, we share memories from our childhoods and laugh when something funny comes along. At some point it felt like it was like any other visit, everything seemed as usual as ever.
She planned to buy some books for her English classes. I do not understand why she wants to do that this especial day. Her mother says that she can do it any other day and I agree with her. But the English classes were only a cover; the main point was that we could come out of the house and take a walk for one last time. I can not believe I did not see it, I am lucky she does not get upset with that. She would have really loved one last walk by the park and I know so would I. Still, the moment has passed and there is nothing left to do about it.
After that unlucky event, it is my turn to surprise her. I wanted to give her something especial, a symbol of her influence of her on me, something that shows how much I changed from the day we met, and of course, something she can use. In my ex high school the professor of a course called family education gave us a quite small book to read. It belonged to a collection of books called “learning to live” and it had eleven books; a different book for each grade of school. The book corresponding the last year of high school was called “facing the big decisions in life” and it was about a twelfth high school couple: How they go through their last year of school, and their expectations of life. At the same time it also focuses in sexual education too. It helped me when trying to do the decision to travel and I know she would find a lot of use to it.
I present the book to her and she accepts it. In the cover of it were the characters of the history, in that group of people she points a girl and then points a boy. She says that she is the girl and I am the boy. I know it is the first time she sees that book but the funny thing is that the boy and the girl are the main couple of the book. She can not believe it either. It is this type of coincidence that I like and expect that they do not end in only coincidences.
At some point and only for a short moment I feel like there is no time, just as it used to be every time I visited her. The world stops once I am inside her home and the world stars running again at the moment I leave her door. However, we both know that this time is different. The world, its time and destiny conspire against us. To hide our increasing fear we ignore those three elements.
Her mother comes to the rescue and invite us a small meal. Once we are on the dinner table we discover the first thing in common we have: we both like the blue cup. This certainly makes me smile, to discover something in common for the first time even though it had to be in this occasion is very comfortable. I do not lie when I say is the first thing we both have in common. I have not met someone as different from me as her, and the chances for it to happen are so far that even the sun has more chances to explode in the next New Year eve.
We enjoy the meal, but after a while everything goes blue. I see her, I know she is very close to me, I can hear her little voice talking. But as the second pass by, I began to hear her quieter. I know we are close, but I am beginning to feel her far from me, farer with every moment. All the strengths I have left I concentrated in my face; I do not want her to know the lack of hope I am feeling. I do not want to make her feel sad; something tells me that she is feeling sad enough for me to make the situation even worse. My mind fall unconscious, and I keep trying my best for her to not notice it. I can not help feel that this is going to be the last time I see her; the sadness hidden under my face is increasing with every second. What can I do to hide it? What can a man do when he is asked to face his destiny leaving everything behind?
I am preparing myself to face my own destiny, this destiny that challenges me saying that I do not have the courage to start a new adventure. The destiny and I know that I am capable of it as long as she would go with me, but this time I am on my own and the chances for succeed are minimum. But I have put everything behind and have accepted the challenge of my destiny, the plane ticket is already bought and it is only matter of time for the final moment to come. Both of us knew that was going to happen and that the final word was going to be decided with this last visit. In other words, even though I have bought the ticket we both know that I am not a hundred percent sure if I really want this to happen.
I do not want the time to pass. I do not want to face the reality of the world. A reality telling me that my chances to come back for her are less than one percent. It feels like someone shouting at me telling I am going to fail. The destiny plays its last card to convince me to stay. It says to me to go and tell my folks that even though the ticket is already bought I do not want to go. The time laugh while I feel in hell, doubting of the decision I made for the last time.
The cruel reality is nothing more than the true reality. My dad is already there along with my old brother; both of them have decided to stay in the US. My mom has to stay in Peru with my younger brother at least for a year until he finishes high school. If I stay then the possibilities for the rest of the family to stay increase, if I go and stay in the US then the chances for the whole family to go abroad increase too. So the question would be: what to do?
The family issue itself is not by biggest problem. It is not my decision that matters there, at the end everything is decided between Mr. and Mrs. Fernandez. The biggest problem now is she. I do not want to leave her behind me. But the reality has a cold heart; it tells me to look forward in the future. If I stayed and we go to university together we will do fine, but doing fine in a Peruvian university is not enough to face the real life. A person has to be best to survive in society, and if he is not the best he will have to sudar la gota gorda to be able to make a life on his own. And as I matter of fact I really would hate seeing Andreita, after studying so hard for her bachelor degree, working hard for a salary that would be almost nothing.
But if I go and come back for her the situation would change dramatically, I would not have to see her work with an unfair salary. In fact, she would not have to work unless she wants to. All this seems a fine choice, but everything has a catch. What is the catch? While I am gone such thing as coming back for someone or waiting for someone becomes our greatest enemy. Even though I trust in her word, I do not think I trust in my own. I can succeed abroad and come to visit my family, almost everybody do that. They come back to see their family “with” their new family. Although Andreita and I have discussed the issue of meeting someone else shortly, that topic will always be there.
The destiny says to me that I have nothing sure, that if I go and I am not admitted I would have nothing else that to come back be defeated once again. And that this time the emotional breakdown is going to be much worse than the one caused by the failure when I traveled to Africa. The reality strikes again telling me that even if I succeed in the US there are not chances for her and me to happen. While all this happen, the time laughing like mad tells me that the meal is over and that she and I are watching TV.
The time tells me that, one way or another, this visit is going to end. The final moment to decide is approaching. I can continue with the decision to travel or I can look back in the dark pathway and run towards the gate of entrance and abandon the journey of tomorrow. It is almost eight o’clock in the night already, less than twelve hours to go to the airport, grab my stuff and leave forever.
My strengths are gone; the fear has taken over me. Even though my decision has not been changed, I see the probability to stay with bigger eyes than ever before. I can not stand the idea telling me that after tomorrow we would never sit in the same sofa again. I can not stand not being able to see her face again; I can not manage the reality of this world. The worst is that I do not have strengths left to ask her how she feels. I can not believe that for the first time I am not able to cheer her up, to hug her and tell her that everything is going to be all right.
The time comes closer and closer. We still have one last thing left to do. The problem is what: she wants something different from what I want. An easy yam-kem-po solves it. She wants me to sing something. I remember the first visits, she used to show me some lyrics and make me sing; usually songs in a different language, especially Asian ones. At the beginning it was awful, but at the end I used to like the song too.
This time she brought something in Spanish, the first time she does that. Reading the lyrics, listening she sing, and the fact that she wants me to sing it even though I have never heard that song before was just magic. I do not need to say how it felt; just saying what the song caused in me is going to be enough.
Let the world and its reality come! Let the time run! Let me face the destiny! I can beat them all three together. I can kick the ass of anything that says that she and I are not meant to happen. The whole world that was crushing against me with all its weight now fits in the palm of my hand, and it is me who is ready to crash it. She knows what I am feeling; she knows that for the last time she has given me strength. She knows I am ready now. She has made the final pact with me; nor the time or destiny not even this world and its reality can defeat us. We are not afraid of the last moment anymore.
We stand up from the sofa for the last time. I say goodbye to her mom, acknowledging her for everything and for raising such a fine kid as her daughter. She says that I am always welcome to her home, as long as I keep the right track in my life. I want to tell her that the idea of meeting her daughter again in the future is going to be far enough to keep me in that track. But I rather not tell her, at least not that moment.
Andreita opens the door and together we go down the circled stairs for the last time. We are in front of the green fence; it is going to past a long time for us to view the fence from the same side. We see each other and everything else dies in a hug, a hug that does not obey the laws of time. According to a normal clock it is no more than one minute, but in us it lasts all the time that have passed since we have known each other.
We had our last moment crossing the fence and now we are looking the fence but from opposite sides. She is here and I am there, but only for a period of time. She asks me to write to her and then she goes back to her home, she goes back and I can not scream for her to return. The moment has come to sail from my country and do not look back. I see her building from outside the fence for a moment and then I go.
The charming landscape that I first saw is now gone. There is no one except from her and me, together one last time. She watches me from her window, and I have to start walking away from her home. Now the steps are not challenging, nor anything. She is watching me going away from her; something none of us would have thought possible few weeks ago. I know I am going to come back, I just do not know when. But God gives me strength, gives strength to both of us. God accepted my request and put the moon for me, I see the moon and feel that this time I am not alone: He is by my side looking for me. Only He knows how this is going to end, I trust him with no doubt now.
The sky is completely dark, as if I am alone in the whole universe. I can not feel anything, neither the breeze of the sky or the cold of the night. I am walking now. With every step I challenge the destiny. I know she is looking at me but I can not turn back, I have already sailed. I will only look at her when I am ready, I am going away as a kid of 17 years old but I will come back as a man who looks for his lady.
She is there, in her apartment, in Lima a ten thousand miles from where I will be. I know she is going to do good here. She is smart, she is strong, she is tender, she is Andreita, she is my Andreita and I know God will always look for her. I know that someday I will come back and she will be looking from her window waiting me. I know when that day comes we would be able to look at the landscape surrounding us as never before, that day when we will be looking the full moon together.
A part of me will die when I pick the plane to the US, everything that I hold dear in this country will be left behind. But as one part of me dies another part will raise, the desire to come back and do this unfinished business. Andreita and I do not know what is going to happen in the future, the only thing that we know for sure is that before everything ends one more last visit has to happen. And it will.
Near Avenida La Marina there are series of small parks, with the size of one or perhaps two blocks. The last of those parks has a green building at its end, and that green building is where my dearest dreams can be found. The whole happy picture of the park means nothing without that green building. There she lives, and that is where I am going. I am going home, just as Denzel Washington would say: “to blue lagoon”. I am going home and maybe this is the last time I do it: Tomorrow I will be on a plane heading north, and I will be going for a long time. However, I can not travel without visiting her one last time, maybe because I fear that this will be the last time I see Andreita.
We met in the eleventh grade of high school. Even though we were in the same class one whole semester, we started talking only at the end of it. Mainly because she was one of the smartest people in class; as a matter of fact she is one of the smartest people of her age I have ever known. It all started when she helped me with physics, until that date I had never met someone who has behaved so nicely with me, at least for the first time we ever talked. After that incident I used to go to her for almost every academic trouble I had. I hardly could believe the patience she had with me. I, too, tried to help her in everything I could, but that was almost nothing compared to her help towards me.
During the last weeks of that year we had more chances to interact with each other. She used to sit in the same place for an entire semester, and there were times that I got to sit next to her. Those days were unique. It seemed as all the fun I had during that year of high school was not compared to those days, not compared at all. She did not use to talk very much but once the conversation was on, we would both enjoy it.
At the end of that year I received the notice that I would have to travel to Africa and stay there to finish my studies. We said goodbye to each other with the feeling that something more had to happen. And so it did when the destiny told me that I could not stay in Africa, the only thing left to do was to comeback to do the last year of high school in Peru. Somehow I knew that our friendship was given a second chance and I worked hard on it, really hard. That is why it hurts to have to say goodbye to her.
She was so different from me; I still can not believe we have come all this way together yet. I think she is too woman for me, she has all the qualities a young lady of her age should have. She is so childlike; in her eyes I only see transparency. She smiles and all my problems go away, she is too sweet and tender. She knows she can get anything from me with her smile, everything except this last visit.
Ironically, this last visit is the first time I show up late. She is looking outside her window waiting for me; she lives in the third floor of a green building right in front of a park. I always liked going to her house. The bus stop is five blocks away from her building and those blocks are filled with a series of small parks. Walking through those parks used to take away any stress, they were the perfect way to start my disconnection from this world. Especially if I know that after those parks I get to be with her. But this time everything seems to be so strange and treacherous, every step that takes me closer to her home is challenging. I do not want to go on with the reality of this world, I do not want to accept the fact that I am traveling tomorrow. My courage is being tested as never before, at such a point that I fear it may fall. But I see her! I feel her tenderness encouraging me to keep going forward. Just to see her makes me able to feel the warmth of the sun. Just seeing her makes allows me to appreciate the wonder of the landscape in front of me. I feel me again.
Before the end of the eleventh year of high school where we started gaining trust on each other I used to be different. As a kid I considered myself as a good guy, but the opinion changed with the years and I was not sure if I was a good guy or a bad guy. Then I came with the conclusion that I am really neither a bad guy nor a good guy, I am just what a situation needs me to be. If the situation requires for me to I act following my moral values I will, but when the situation does not require them then I will not follow them. I often accommodated myself with the situation. But with her it was different, there was never a situation. I did not have to pretend or to hide anything. It just was her and me, and I loved those moments. Moments threaten to disappear forever.
I reach her building; it has a huge green grille at the back of it. I do not have to ring the bell, she knows it is me. I go on inside the building, up through the circled stairs until the third floor; there is small passage where at its end are two apartments. Both of them have brown doors but one of them has a black grille right in front of it, I know it is that one. It seemed it was yesterday the first time I entered into her house. We see each other and then she smiles at me; her little face turns into the first marvel of the world when she smiles at me. As soon as I see her I feel I have found the true me, when she smiles I feel I have found heaven. She shorted her hair and is wearing white pants and a blue t-shirt, she can wear anything and still she would look perfect. I greet her and her mom who is right behind of her.
Her apartment smells and feels like home. I feel disconnected to the rest of the world once I am in those walls. I feel as if there was no time within those walls painted in yellow. Once you have passed the door the first thing you will see at five or six more steps is the dinner table with its six chairs around it. At the left hand of the table there is the kitchen, -which I have not entered yet- I only have seen it from the outside. The television and the radio equipment are located just at the right side of the door in a big shelf. In front of that shelf and at the right of the dinner table there are three sofas, the softest sofas I have ever sat on. I try to see everything with great detail so I can remember forever.
Since the moment I decided to travel the course of my life headed a dark pathway. As the last day of stay in Peru approached my life came closer to that pathway. I am in her house for the last time, a new adventure have already begun. I am already in that dark pathway, but I am still near the star to be able to go back.
Inside us both try to imagine what the other feels. And at the same time we do our best to figure what are our own feelings. Even though I try my best to hide my sadness, I can not help feeling it. I think she notices it because she understands why. She knows what to do cheer me up. She knows how to encourage me to go on with this new course in my life; she knows she is the only one who can do it. If someone would ask me who is the stronger of the two of us I would just say that my strength comes from her, that she is my strength. She smiles at me and turns on the light for hope in this dark pathway in which I am in.
She smiled at me and now I feel able to manage all the feelings that were suffocating me. We sit down in her sofa, just like many other times before. I even can remember once her grandmother from Ica was visiting her and we could not sit on the same sofa. I was told that under the rules of her grandma it would have been inappropriate for us to sit together. It was really funny, I have never heard of such thing before. Sited both of us in the sofa, we share memories from our childhoods and laugh when something funny comes along. At some point it felt like it was like any other visit, everything seemed as usual as ever.
She planned to buy some books for her English classes. I do not understand why she wants to do that this especial day. Her mother says that she can do it any other day and I agree with her. But the English classes were only a cover; the main point was that we could come out of the house and take a walk for one last time. I can not believe I did not see it, I am lucky she does not get upset with that. She would have really loved one last walk by the park and I know so would I. Still, the moment has passed and there is nothing left to do about it.
After that unlucky event, it is my turn to surprise her. I wanted to give her something especial, a symbol of her influence of her on me, something that shows how much I changed from the day we met, and of course, something she can use. In my ex high school the professor of a course called family education gave us a quite small book to read. It belonged to a collection of books called “learning to live” and it had eleven books; a different book for each grade of school. The book corresponding the last year of high school was called “facing the big decisions in life” and it was about a twelfth high school couple: How they go through their last year of school, and their expectations of life. At the same time it also focuses in sexual education too. It helped me when trying to do the decision to travel and I know she would find a lot of use to it.
I present the book to her and she accepts it. In the cover of it were the characters of the history, in that group of people she points a girl and then points a boy. She says that she is the girl and I am the boy. I know it is the first time she sees that book but the funny thing is that the boy and the girl are the main couple of the book. She can not believe it either. It is this type of coincidence that I like and expect that they do not end in only coincidences.
At some point and only for a short moment I feel like there is no time, just as it used to be every time I visited her. The world stops once I am inside her home and the world stars running again at the moment I leave her door. However, we both know that this time is different. The world, its time and destiny conspire against us. To hide our increasing fear we ignore those three elements.
Her mother comes to the rescue and invite us a small meal. Once we are on the dinner table we discover the first thing in common we have: we both like the blue cup. This certainly makes me smile, to discover something in common for the first time even though it had to be in this occasion is very comfortable. I do not lie when I say is the first thing we both have in common. I have not met someone as different from me as her, and the chances for it to happen are so far that even the sun has more chances to explode in the next New Year eve.
We enjoy the meal, but after a while everything goes blue. I see her, I know she is very close to me, I can hear her little voice talking. But as the second pass by, I began to hear her quieter. I know we are close, but I am beginning to feel her far from me, farer with every moment. All the strengths I have left I concentrated in my face; I do not want her to know the lack of hope I am feeling. I do not want to make her feel sad; something tells me that she is feeling sad enough for me to make the situation even worse. My mind fall unconscious, and I keep trying my best for her to not notice it. I can not help feel that this is going to be the last time I see her; the sadness hidden under my face is increasing with every second. What can I do to hide it? What can a man do when he is asked to face his destiny leaving everything behind?
I am preparing myself to face my own destiny, this destiny that challenges me saying that I do not have the courage to start a new adventure. The destiny and I know that I am capable of it as long as she would go with me, but this time I am on my own and the chances for succeed are minimum. But I have put everything behind and have accepted the challenge of my destiny, the plane ticket is already bought and it is only matter of time for the final moment to come. Both of us knew that was going to happen and that the final word was going to be decided with this last visit. In other words, even though I have bought the ticket we both know that I am not a hundred percent sure if I really want this to happen.
I do not want the time to pass. I do not want to face the reality of the world. A reality telling me that my chances to come back for her are less than one percent. It feels like someone shouting at me telling I am going to fail. The destiny plays its last card to convince me to stay. It says to me to go and tell my folks that even though the ticket is already bought I do not want to go. The time laugh while I feel in hell, doubting of the decision I made for the last time.
The cruel reality is nothing more than the true reality. My dad is already there along with my old brother; both of them have decided to stay in the US. My mom has to stay in Peru with my younger brother at least for a year until he finishes high school. If I stay then the possibilities for the rest of the family to stay increase, if I go and stay in the US then the chances for the whole family to go abroad increase too. So the question would be: what to do?
The family issue itself is not by biggest problem. It is not my decision that matters there, at the end everything is decided between Mr. and Mrs. Fernandez. The biggest problem now is she. I do not want to leave her behind me. But the reality has a cold heart; it tells me to look forward in the future. If I stayed and we go to university together we will do fine, but doing fine in a Peruvian university is not enough to face the real life. A person has to be best to survive in society, and if he is not the best he will have to sudar la gota gorda to be able to make a life on his own. And as I matter of fact I really would hate seeing Andreita, after studying so hard for her bachelor degree, working hard for a salary that would be almost nothing.
But if I go and come back for her the situation would change dramatically, I would not have to see her work with an unfair salary. In fact, she would not have to work unless she wants to. All this seems a fine choice, but everything has a catch. What is the catch? While I am gone such thing as coming back for someone or waiting for someone becomes our greatest enemy. Even though I trust in her word, I do not think I trust in my own. I can succeed abroad and come to visit my family, almost everybody do that. They come back to see their family “with” their new family. Although Andreita and I have discussed the issue of meeting someone else shortly, that topic will always be there.
The destiny says to me that I have nothing sure, that if I go and I am not admitted I would have nothing else that to come back be defeated once again. And that this time the emotional breakdown is going to be much worse than the one caused by the failure when I traveled to Africa. The reality strikes again telling me that even if I succeed in the US there are not chances for her and me to happen. While all this happen, the time laughing like mad tells me that the meal is over and that she and I are watching TV.
The time tells me that, one way or another, this visit is going to end. The final moment to decide is approaching. I can continue with the decision to travel or I can look back in the dark pathway and run towards the gate of entrance and abandon the journey of tomorrow. It is almost eight o’clock in the night already, less than twelve hours to go to the airport, grab my stuff and leave forever.
My strengths are gone; the fear has taken over me. Even though my decision has not been changed, I see the probability to stay with bigger eyes than ever before. I can not stand the idea telling me that after tomorrow we would never sit in the same sofa again. I can not stand not being able to see her face again; I can not manage the reality of this world. The worst is that I do not have strengths left to ask her how she feels. I can not believe that for the first time I am not able to cheer her up, to hug her and tell her that everything is going to be all right.
The time comes closer and closer. We still have one last thing left to do. The problem is what: she wants something different from what I want. An easy yam-kem-po solves it. She wants me to sing something. I remember the first visits, she used to show me some lyrics and make me sing; usually songs in a different language, especially Asian ones. At the beginning it was awful, but at the end I used to like the song too.
This time she brought something in Spanish, the first time she does that. Reading the lyrics, listening she sing, and the fact that she wants me to sing it even though I have never heard that song before was just magic. I do not need to say how it felt; just saying what the song caused in me is going to be enough.
Let the world and its reality come! Let the time run! Let me face the destiny! I can beat them all three together. I can kick the ass of anything that says that she and I are not meant to happen. The whole world that was crushing against me with all its weight now fits in the palm of my hand, and it is me who is ready to crash it. She knows what I am feeling; she knows that for the last time she has given me strength. She knows I am ready now. She has made the final pact with me; nor the time or destiny not even this world and its reality can defeat us. We are not afraid of the last moment anymore.
We stand up from the sofa for the last time. I say goodbye to her mom, acknowledging her for everything and for raising such a fine kid as her daughter. She says that I am always welcome to her home, as long as I keep the right track in my life. I want to tell her that the idea of meeting her daughter again in the future is going to be far enough to keep me in that track. But I rather not tell her, at least not that moment.
Andreita opens the door and together we go down the circled stairs for the last time. We are in front of the green fence; it is going to past a long time for us to view the fence from the same side. We see each other and everything else dies in a hug, a hug that does not obey the laws of time. According to a normal clock it is no more than one minute, but in us it lasts all the time that have passed since we have known each other.
We had our last moment crossing the fence and now we are looking the fence but from opposite sides. She is here and I am there, but only for a period of time. She asks me to write to her and then she goes back to her home, she goes back and I can not scream for her to return. The moment has come to sail from my country and do not look back. I see her building from outside the fence for a moment and then I go.
The charming landscape that I first saw is now gone. There is no one except from her and me, together one last time. She watches me from her window, and I have to start walking away from her home. Now the steps are not challenging, nor anything. She is watching me going away from her; something none of us would have thought possible few weeks ago. I know I am going to come back, I just do not know when. But God gives me strength, gives strength to both of us. God accepted my request and put the moon for me, I see the moon and feel that this time I am not alone: He is by my side looking for me. Only He knows how this is going to end, I trust him with no doubt now.
The sky is completely dark, as if I am alone in the whole universe. I can not feel anything, neither the breeze of the sky or the cold of the night. I am walking now. With every step I challenge the destiny. I know she is looking at me but I can not turn back, I have already sailed. I will only look at her when I am ready, I am going away as a kid of 17 years old but I will come back as a man who looks for his lady.
She is there, in her apartment, in Lima a ten thousand miles from where I will be. I know she is going to do good here. She is smart, she is strong, she is tender, she is Andreita, she is my Andreita and I know God will always look for her. I know that someday I will come back and she will be looking from her window waiting me. I know when that day comes we would be able to look at the landscape surrounding us as never before, that day when we will be looking the full moon together.
A part of me will die when I pick the plane to the US, everything that I hold dear in this country will be left behind. But as one part of me dies another part will raise, the desire to come back and do this unfinished business. Andreita and I do not know what is going to happen in the future, the only thing that we know for sure is that before everything ends one more last visit has to happen. And it will.
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