STEPHANIE

On Friday night I told her all my feelings, all the things that have been through my heart and mind for these last weeks. I told her how much I liked her, how cool, funny, awesome and nice she was. I told her how great, relax and confident I feel when we're together. I told her that I miss talking to her, seeing her, knowing about her. I told her both with words and with my body language that I've developed a crush on her. After a Sunday trip that we took few weeks ago, I just couldn't see her with the eyes I use to see her. My feelings for her have changed, have grown, have evolved and I am was head over feet for her. I couldn't keep for myself those feelings any longer, it was eating me alive and I told her.

Words don't come easy to me, not in a club by the bar and with sweaty drunkards all around looking at her ass. Even if we were in a quiet room with candles, a bottle of wine and a nice plate of pasta, words would have not came easier either. Not even with two of my all-time favorite Redbull Vodkas in my head.

After I told her she looked at me straight in the eyes, her pupils expanded by the low dim light of the club. She put her soft hand on my cheek and smiled. For a split of a second I saw a ray of light in her eyes: she loves me too! -I thought.

I saw us kissing right there by the bar; hugging, whispering lots of sweet and nasty things to each other, caressing. For a split of a second I saw myself waking up beside her, sharing stories, memories, plans and projects. I saw us taking weekend trips to the beach, flying to exotic destinations together; saw ourselves sipping coffee on chill fall afternoons. For a split of a second I could see both of us moving together, cooking pasta, baking cookies and making love in every single corner and on every piece of furniture of our house. I'll get up earlier than her every morning and will wake her up with a big French kiss and an even bigger cup of coffee with lots of sugar and cream. For a split of a second I saw myself dropping to my knees one day and popping up the question with a ring on my hand. She was in tears, delighted, in love; we were both crazy for each other. One day she'd call me to my office asking me to come home early, she had something to say to me. Our first baby girl would arrive nine months later and more children will follow. We will grow wrinkles and grey hair together. That Friday, by the bar, I saw the next sixty years of my life in a split of a second.

She rolled her soft hand down my cheek, put both hands on my shoulders, and with all the possible strength that a fit girl could muster she knee me right in the nuts. OUCH! She has thin legs but I have to confess it, she got'em both. Actually she didn't knee me, but she got close to me and whispered sweetly in my right ear: "I also like you very much Jean-Francois. . . you are a great guy. . . but I like you as a friend". I would've prefer that knee in my nuts a hundred times over that line.

Stephanie and I have became friends the old way: we met in one of those continuing education courses that are offered in the local universities; we sat together a couple of times and talked in the corridor after class. One day I asked her to go out and have a cup of coffee, few weeks later we went to watch a movie; we talked on the phone like once every two weeks or so; we saw each other once in a while. Just distant friends that barely knew each other.

But one faithful day we had the great idea of taking a Sunday trip. It was both a miscalculation and a great thing. It was one of the best Sundays in so many weeks, perhaps months in my little universe, and she was right there with me. When I opened my car's door to let her in right before noon that sunny Sunday, she was just another friend-girl here in Charlotte; but as we left behind miles and hours, I started to see her more closely, to hear her stories, to laugh with her, to get to know her better. I thought earlier that day that a whole day with her was going to be like too much, I even thought that I was going to drop her off like around 7 PM and it sounded like a looooong fucking day. But at midnight,when I dropped her off at her place I was having so many feelings and so many thoughts revolving around my heart and head that the only clear one was that I didn't want her to go.

That little trip was also a miscalculation for ever-pragmatic Jean-Francois, because by the time I drop her off, I was head over feet for her.


After that Friday night at the bar when I told her how much I liked her -to put it in very mild words for this post- our relationship changed. For the next weeks she'll play with me the same way a lion plays with a caught baby zebra. She'll grab me by the neck, taking me deep into her territory and being careful enough not to chock me. I happily let her carry me, my smiley head hanging on one side and my body on the other. She would put me down, would play with me and perhaps would slap me in the face with her open paw, her nails hidden just inches from the surface not to hurt me. I'll jump around her, following her while she played with me before eating me for dinner.

The only thing that mattered to me was to be with her.

During those weeks we would get 20oz cups of coffee and the local B&N store, getting overcaffeinated and making goofy faces and taking silly pictures. I'd sprint down the fiction lane and she'd chase me down jumping on my back. I'd find her checking the romance section and I'd spank her ass. While standing in line waiting to get a refill she'd pinch my ass; HARD!; making me yell right in the middle of the bookstore. We'd poison our coffee refills with several bags of sugar in the raw and cream, topping it off with plenty of whipped cream. We would read all the gossip magazines and would comment, judge and suggest splits and new hook ups. We'd go to the lake behind the shopping mall walking around it holding hands and getting eaten by a ever present cloud of mosquitoes; we picked up trash, threw rocks in the lake and flirt with each other.

Stephanie. . . I was crazy for her; and her. . . I'd say she loved all the attention and the fun that this red haired brought to her life in those weeks before her departure. She played with me, but as long as we were together the rest of the world didn't care to me.

My closest friends here in the Bible Belt are girls. I've grown to know that the advice of a girl when it comes to relationships is worth that of a 1,000 man. In talking about Stephanie my male friends would have hit me in the shoulder, brushing away my feelings and saying "we'll get drunk this weekend and you'll feel better dude." My girlfriends were happy for me when I first told them about Stephanie, then a little worried, then they got upset with her and with me. They laughed like crazy while I recounted one day at their condo what had happened that Friday night at the club. When I said that Stephanie had smashed me against the wall like a mosquito on a humid summer evening, Paula laughed so hard that she had to run to the restroom as she almost pee on her pajamas, and I've never seen Cil laughed so hard and for so long in my life. They then proceed to trash Stephanie and every single girl from my past as well as all men and women on the face of earth. They wrote a list for me of about ten "beautiful" girls with phone numbers or connections in order to introduce me to them. "I only want Stephanie! -I told them trying to catch my breath and with a tone of exasperation when they handed me that stupid napkin with the list. Those two rats burst in laughs again even spilling some beer on the table. I couldn't help it and followed suit, laughing. . . it was a laughter of sadness, happiness, frustration but above all rationality.

Monday August 1st finally arrived, and with it her departure. She was going back to Europe, back to her mom and sister, back to her friends and her life. I stayed behind with my little heart in a thousand pieces. We said good-bye on Sunday, both "face to face, kiss to kiss" and later that day on the phone. I decided not to go on Monday to the airport to wish her all the best and to pay for her excess luggage. That Monday morning though, I almost had to handcuff myself to a water pipe and swallow the key in order not to jump in my car, put the pedal on the metal and go see her hug her kiss her love her and tell her so many things that I've already told her or haven't -hell, we spoke so much and I told her so many sweet things in so many ways, forms and languages that I really don't know what I really told her.

Now she's gone.

You people out there must be thinking after reading this post that Jean-Francois is a looser. A fucked up foreigner that has lost many battles in the game of love; a red haired who claims to be Latino but that is so sensitive that he could easily be taken by a girl, perhaps a girly man; y'all must be thinking that he's pathetic.

I'll say that all that is true, but at the same it isn't. I am was am in love and love makes me do things that are not coherent, rational, predictable. When in love I go way out of my usual self and my comfort zone; I'm driven, forthcoming, talkative, and more open and confident than ever. I look straight in the eye and am fearless. I've found out that when in love I put "all the meat on the grill" and become nothing else than myself; just like a small rock of crack cocaine: 100% pure.

Years ago and faced with this very same situation I would've asked myself many times what did I do wrong? Why she didn't love me/like me as much as I loved/liked her? Is there anything I could have done different to win her? Should have said something else? Should've wear my light blue shirt instead of my dark blue one?

Today I know very well the answer to those silly questions.


As my memories of her begin to fade away, the dust slowly setting in, my rational self starts to make its way to the surface. I am -and I was- aware that she was leaving and that nothing could've stop that very little fact. I was and I am aware that there's a girl right around the corner waiting for me. Perhaps I already know her, maybe I've seen her at the grocery store. Maybe she works in my same office building -certainly not in my floor my friends, hell no. Maybe I've seen her jogging near my complex. Perhaps she'll be taking a flight tomorrow, bound for Charlotte, not knowing that there lives a super-cool guy named Jean-Francois who's gona sweep her off her feet and that she eventually will have to break her current engagement 'cause Jean-Francois is her soul mate.

And I'm also aware that Stephanie will be only a wave in this ocean of relationships that my life has turned out to be, perhaps just a shadow in my past by the time winter hits the Southern United States. Through my rational self I know that things will be alright. . . but how can things be alright without Stephanie?!

I believe that one of the greatest abilities of human beings is not just to fall in love and to go crazy for someone; but is the ability to love, let go, heal, learn and move on. And that's where I'm at right now: she's gone and I'm healing, but not quite prepared yet to move on.