Marcos and I met before college, many years ago, I am already an old woman! Sometimes I see pictures of us from school and I think “Oh my! Look at how much hair Marcos has!”
I hated him at first, I don’t know why, but I hated him and spoke ill of him to all my friends, and he, on the other hand, was always looking for an excuse to speak to me, he spoke to me in very awkward and comical ways, and I only made fun of him. I made fun of him until I got bored of doing it.
— AHA! So, you started to miss him, right?
Yes! Human behaviour is really interesting! Well then, unexpectedly we ended up in the same university. He studied communication and I studied journalism. We had a great time, we went out to party every week, we traveled every month. We laugh. We cry. We get angry millions of times, and sex, tons of sex.
— I think college is one of the best times in everyone’s life.
Yes … in the United States it is almost too much because we all leave our cities to go to university and it represents an important moment in our lives because we stop living with our parents and suddenly you have to do everything on your own.
I moved in with him, I was so excited because at that point we were good friends, although I must admit that he was more enthusiastic than me and I knew it. Does that make me a bad person? Well, I don’t know, it’s been so long and now I no longer care.
— And what happened next?
Everything went well, we had certain coexistence problems at first, but then everything was fine. Marcos was messy, more than I thought, but he was my favorite messy person.
— That is soooo sweeet!
Yes … In college I danced until my feet ached and Marcos always remembered those tacos that I prepared for him with oil dripping everywhere, that were so spicy that they made him sweat and look so red!! I still smile when I remember about it.
I loved our unique moments. I think that is what made me fall in love with him: his ability to make small moments become great memories. He liked those tacos so much that we ate them on the 28th of each month because it is our anniversary. So, the 28th became a very special date for us, it was so special that Marcos always said that in 10 years we would get married, but look, 12 years later and we are not married.
— So, you are no longer in a relationship?
A few years ago he started a business with another woman and started having a lot of business trips and suddenly he acted weird, he was really acting weird, he was nervous as if he had something to tell me.
One fine day he told me that he was going to leave for a whole week. I was angry with him, like really mad, because he was acting so strange, and according to him nothing was wrong. I remember he spoke “with his mom” for more than an hour.
And then, he left, and after a few days he told me that he would return just for the 28th. We were not in our best moment, the monotony affected us, and I decided to prepare dinner in a slightly more special way: I bought flowers, scented the dining room and decorated our room, you know what I mean. I waited for him with my famous tacos on the table, filled with jalapeños so his face would be red like a tomato when eating them. I had spent the whole afternoon in the supermarket and the kitchen. I turned on Spotify to play a little soft blues that accompanied the white wine, cold at 10 degrees, just how Marcos liked it.
But he did not show up, I waited for the headlights of his car to illuminate the living room before entering the garage. I wanted to hear his keys in the door, but it did not happen. I kept reheating the food again and again until I gave up after an hour and a half. At that moment, the candles were completely burnt out and I decided to open the wine, this time just for myself.
As soon as he would come, I thought that we would have to deal with conversations we were avoiding having for a very long time. We never talked about how boringness affects us or how we hadn’t been on vacation in years. We struggled with infertility, and we never talked about it either, out of fear, I guess, I don’t know. I remember that night so clearly. I fell asleep thinking about all those things that could have been and were not. About everything that we could have done and did not do, and about the ugly things that I said to him and that perhaps hurted him more than I expected.
The next day I woke up with the headache anyone over 30 would suffer after drinking wine for less than 10 euros. As soon as I opened my eyes, I looked at my cell phone and I had 11 missed calls, I wanted to see from whom but as soon as I tried to investigate about the phone number my phone started ringing, it was the police, and they came looking for me. When the police officers arrived, they said nothing and asked me to get into the car.
After half an hour we reached the outskirts of the city where there was a car upside down, it was Marcos’. My heart stopped short, and my head froze. My hands suddenly did not work, and I felt a deep dizziness that almost made me lose consciousness. The policeman immediately hugged me, he did not have to tell me anything because it was obvious what happened, in a matter of two days we buried him.
A week later, I had to collect all our belongings that were in the car before the accident. There was a jumper, a soccer ball, a blanket, and a box with a ring inside that said, “Ana and Marcos”, by the way, my name is Ana, I now know why he was acting strange, he wanted to propose.
Listening to this story, I got emotional, I could see in Ana’s face how she thinking that Marcos could cheat on her, and I think: Would we act the same if we only knew how long we have left?
