A lot in my chest

I remember the time I fell in love with him very clearly.

We'd been friends for two years and were sitting in the local Portuguese restaurant over dinner. I was answering one of his many interesting questions, talking, and then I felt it.

I stopped. Looked away just in time, out the window. And thought: oh shit. Because I didn't need to look down to confirm that an arrow had just ripped through my heart.

In my peripheral vision I saw his expression as he leant in — a knee-jerk reaction to my reaction. Shock. With a hope so slight he didn't even notice it himself. The arrow piercing his. A silent ring flooded in and I literally blacked out.

When I came back, we just. Said nothing. I didn't know how long I'd been gone. Not long enough for anyone to have uttered the word ambulance. And we resumed the conversation where we left off. But all the while the tension was building, mounting — and I grappled with it, wrestled with it, fought it with such ferocious intensity that when I farted, I stopped. Dead.

I had to accept the fact that I had lost the bet. Badly. Right then and there in the middle of the restaurant. And to add insult to injury, the smell was so bad that the table next to us turned around and gave me the most disgusted look I had ever seen in my life.

The shame.

Without over-explaining, I asked him if we could leave. And then he understood. And in the understanding said: it's okay. Let's go. And we stood up, paid, and left.

God knows me much better than I know myself.

When I was twenty-five I was on a return journey from Venice Carnival. I remember talking to God on the bus, saying something along the lines of: I think I want to fall in love. The description of it seems so… so? — sigh, batting eyelids — I know how to give love and I know how to receive love. But I know I've never actually fallen in love before.

And he was like: is that what you think?

And I said: yeah… is that something you can make happen?

And he asked: is that something you want to happen?

And I said: yeah. But I actually want to know it's happening and really get the full experience, you know?

And he was like: mmhmmm. Mmhmmm.

And I continued: so I guess what I'm asking is — can I actually have this experience, please? I think I'd know who you'd pick for me if I saw them.

And he said: is that so?

And I said: bet.

And he said: okay. Here's the deal. If you don't spot them, you get to experience the real deal — and I win. If you do spot them, you get the real deal and you win.

I sat there stroking the chin of my mind, so consumed by the idea that I forgot to ask two questions.

So if I win, I said, I get the real deal and the acknowledgment that I managed to spot them?

Yes, God said.

I thought about what that would look like for a moment longer.

Okay. Sounds like a win-win. Deal.

Deal, he confirmed.

Wait — do I already know them?

I'm not giving you any clues. The deal has already been made.

Alright. Fine.

And then I spent the rest of the bus journey home wondering what would give them away.

When he and I walked out of the restaurant in the direction of my home, I didn't even know I was rambling — couldn't remember what I was rambling about even though the words had just left my mouth. And I remember my arms kind of lifted in the air. Not a flailing, but more like a gesture of almost theatrical invitation for a soppy embrace.

When I caught that gesture before it had fully expressed itself, I thought: what the fuck? Then I looked around and thought: where are we? — and for about two or three seconds I couldn't even recognise that we were walking down the street I lived on. Thirty metres from my own house.

As we were closing the last few metres, I turned my head to look at him. He was rubbing his hands on his face with an expression that clearly read: what the fuck? It can't be. It simply can't be. Is this real? Is this what that feeling is? Am I feeling it? Is this—

And I managed to read all of that before he even noticed I was looking at him.

Because for a man of very few words — always one to think carefully before expressing them, and with a quality in the words when he does — it is usually impossible to read more than the first letter of the first word on his face.

And then he noticed. Noticed that in that moment he had been reading his book out loud. And still thinking out loud, asked himself:

How long has she been listening?

And instantly closed his book shut.