“The tie is not the problem,” he says in his usual condescending tone.
I know full well that it isn’t about some damned tie. It’s this situation that I’m not able to get out from under and that’s oppressing me and taking my breath away and it’s getting worse with every hour that passes.
I see myself in the mirror and I don’t like at all what I see. I’m about to go to a wedding and it looks like I’m heading to a funeral. My eyes are sunken and lifeless and my coloring is pale.
What is happening to me?
I can’t stop thinking about what I did to Ciara and how I treated her. I would deserve it if Patrick was to choke me with his hands.
Ciara. She was a baby who was just learning how to walk when I met her. She was playing in the garden with her brothers in the grass and covered in mud.
I saw her grow up and become a curious child, full of life. A teenager with a well-defined personality who was always joyful. Open to the world, curious to discover what she could and immerse herself in its colors. She’s been painting forever—with her hands, brushes or her whole body, judging by the paint stains she always seems to have.
I’ve always adored this about her.
Sure, I noticed how she’d blush around me and I told myself it was a passing fancy, a teenage crush. It was pretty normal, she saw us at her house all the time: we were her brother’s friends.
A friend, sure. I have been and remain a friend.
I have walked a very careful path between us, I have always treated her as a sister and not only because Patrick forced us all make that stupid promise of ‘not getting involved with his sister’. I did it because there are twelve years’ difference between us and I had to put some distance there that would not permit her to hope for anything more than friendship.
Then she started going out on dates and I started feeling something new: blind rage that would see me take a Hurling stick to any asshole who got close to her. Luckily, Patrick was there to do the dirty work and I could just sit back in silence, hoping that he’d be the one to put the brakes on her ill-judged relationships.
I’ve seen her transform herself before my eyes into a beautiful woman who is sure of herself. I admit it, I’ve thought about the curves of her body under those colorful outfits more than once. I shouldn’t have done, I know, but they were just fantasies that couldn’t hurt anyone.
I was aware of the fact that we were suspended in mid-air, kept apart by a thin line separating friendship from something deeper that never should have existed, and not only because of my relationship with her brother.
I never really thought about it, never about her in that way. If I were to tell you the truth, I’ve never really thought of anyone in that way.
It’s just not me. I wasn’t that kind of guy and am still not that kind of guy.
I had a past that needed to be buried deep underground and I buried my heart along with it. For years I’ve set aside my needs and feelings for the benefit of others. It’s been a big success until now.
And now what do I do that it’s no longer working? Why am I not able to go back to the shadows? Why am I only now starting to become aware of this loneliness in my soul?
I let my defences down for one second and it was fatal. I was weak and I let her look inside of me, and she saw something that was asking to be freed.
My fantasies came tumbling back to life and my blood started running in my veins again, bringing oxygen to my body, my head and this stupid broken-down heart.
I can’t give in to this sentimentalism. I need to isolate it once again and turn off this desire that is flaring up within me, dangerously and out of control.
I am not the one for her. I never could be.
I am thirty-four years old, I’m dark and cynical. I’m a walking disaster. There’s not much out there for me in terms of a future. All I can do is go on taking care of others, resolving other people’s problems and finding ways out. I don’t have time to think of anything else.
It’s too late for me.
She is so beautiful and sunny, with her whole life in front of her. It would be a crime for her to waste her time on me. She shouldn’t set aside her dreams and ambitions to worry about an unworthy soul like mine.
Because I know that she would. I know that she would give me everything that she has, bringing air and light to my world, but at the same time causing irreparable harm to hers.
No. I can’t let her do this to her life. I can’t drag her into the darkness with me.
She’s a shining light and has to go on being so. She has to go on dreaming and I certainly won’t be the one to wake her up and face hard reality.
