It was hard not knowing what he wanted and it was harder not knowing what I wanted. I left the building confused more than angry or upset or disappointed. Nothing had changed and nothing would. We would never see eye to eye and maybe it was for the best, though it was hard to convince myself of that as I wiped the streams of tears from my cheeks. Why was I crying? I have had this conversation in my head before, many times, and yet it never made a difference and I never learned anything from it – not from him and not from anyone else. I had to figure things out for myself. I needed to leave. I needed to move on and find a new place with new people and new experiences. I needed to leave everything behind; history repeating itself was not something I enjoyed.

That night I stayed up until dawn and I wish I could say that I accomplished some productive thinking, but I just replayed the events of the evening over and over. I felt like something that had never been – something that he had never known about – was over. It was hard to think that all those feelings were just within me and no one else. This wasn’t a teenage romance where when I confessed my feelings he instantly fell in love with me or that over time he realised how much he enjoyed my company. Instead, it ended with his arm around a person and his lips upon another. This was absolutely despicable behaviour because neither of those people was me. There was no reason for me to tell him anything and there is no reason for me to tell him that I am leaving. The decision is final. The plane ticket has been purchased. I am leaving with a suitcase filled with clothes and books, pens and notebooks, feelings and promises. I will try to leave the hurt behind.

I boarded the airplane and hoped to sit next to an interesting character that I could perhaps tell future friends about.

Instead I sat alone.

I read and read and read throughout the flight, and only looked up twice. I wanted to be concerned only with myself and my life.

The city found me alone that night and I sat in a hotel room, lights pouring in. This was a new and unfamiliar place, but the job was waiting.

The next morning I took a cab to the apartment I had accepted over the telephone. There was nothing familiar about it. Papers were signed and sleeping bag unrolled; a new life unfolding before me. I still felt like me; there was no escaping that. There was also no escaping an inevitable routine of grocery shopping and furniture purchases - I would always hate apples and need a couch. There was some solace in the familiarity of routine. For an entire day, I paced through the city deciding what it is precisely that needed to be done. This was my last chance to decide what I would make of my life.

There would be no office romance and no secret love. I told myself that I would be a minimalist with a bicycle. In fact, I had an entire list of stipulations worked out for myself. This was a pleasant city, but I decided that it did not matter where I was. Any city would suffice to make me change and make me forget everything that had happened; everything that I didn’t want to think about. No one knows me here and no one knows what I went through. No one had witnessed my embarrassment and my horror. This is it. Perhaps I was being a fool thinking that I could just leave it at ‘flee everything’.

The office atmosphere was one of camaraderie, something that appealed to me. I always had a need to surround myself with new people. There was never spontaneity in my life and it was time to introduce it. The past should stay where it was. I needed to have new experiences, new emotions and new handwriting. Time escaped me regularly and I needed to define who I was going to become. There was no reason to be vague, but habits are hard to break and specificity is difficult to initiate. I introduced myself to a co-worker as Sarah, my classic middle name that I had disliked my entire life. It doesn’t matter now. I am not trying to impress her and she was not impressed. I looked around and didn’t see many males - no one for me to inadvertently fall in love with - the best news I’d received since arriving in this foreign city.

My apartment was lonely, but that was all right. I stood by the window and pondered my existence; I didn’t come up with anything. The telephone rang and I was surprised. The gentleman on the telephone promised me lower rates on my mortgage and I listened for a few moments before hanging up without a word. There was a soft knocking at the door. I stared through the peephole – as if it mattered.

“Hi there, this might seem like an odd request, but could you come watch my pots for a few moments, I need to grab something at the corner store. It won’t be more than 10 minutes.” I was shocked at the request. I hadn’t moved into a neighbourhood, I had moved into sterile individual quarters. But I appreciated the fact that he had taken the time to come over and gather the courage to knock on the door of a stranger.

I grabbed a novel and my keys and followed him down the hall. There were four pots boiling and sizzling, I wondered why he had trusted them for three minutes while he came over and not while he left for just a few more. I sat at the kitchen table. This apartment looked nearly identical to mine, just more homely and lived in. The furniture was unique and he was clearly a bachelor. The living room and dining room were engulfed in one massive dark area rug. It was evidently hiding something. There was a television that seemed to have been used rarely, with little success, as the African figurine posing in front of it and the amount of dust that had settled on both seemed to indicate. I saw books and newspapers stacked by each sofa. A large oil painting hung confidently above the kitchen table. It was an abstract landscape filled with weeping trees. A sketchbook accompanied by a pencil was placed concisely on the table. I quickly glanced at it and was impressed. I stood and looked into the pots, pondering their existence prior to that moment - where they had been and where they had come from. Inside was another story. There was not a single dish I could recognize by name, but the ingredients seemed familiar. I gently stirred them all and returned to my seat at the table. I began to read, and wished the book would go on forever. He returned shortly thereafter, thanked me, and introduced himself as Julian, though everyone called him Rif - something he didn’t care to explain.

I smiled as I left and realised that I had not said a word to him. Also, I had no idea what he looked like. The next day, I began my work full time and it was interesting. It did not matter anyhow, whether I enjoyed it or not. It was still novel. After work I found some furniture stores and made some calculated purchases, mostly based on how many people I could potentially have over. I decided on 11. That night I returned home with a rather large disassembled bookcase in my arms. Something inside of me wanted to ask Rif if he would be so kind as to help me carry it up. We would end up having dinner and laughs together. But that was the old me; the one who had avid daydreams about situations that would never happen. I practically ran from the elevator to my door, swiftly passing by his.

During the following weeks, I was kept busy with late nights at work. My place of residence slowly began to feel like a home. There was little time for me to have a social life. I had seen Rif on occasion, but there was no time for greetings. The current project seemed to suddenly end and I found myself with lots of time on my hands. This meant that I could spend the weekend in the city wandering around and exploring, rather than sleeping and doing a week’s worth of dishes. I smiled at children and felt at home in this very unfamiliar place. I had made the right decision to move - there had been no thoughts of Nathan in weeks. That night I decided that I would cook a meal fit for royalty. Indeed it was an enjoyable meal and I was sad that I was the only one who was there to eat it on the balcony. The loneliness was beginning to set in.

Early the next morning I found myself at the bakery across the street. When I returned, I spotted Rif fumbling with his keys in one hand and a few boxes in the other. I ran to his aide. I followed him to his apartment and through to one of the two bedrooms, where he asked me to set the box on the table. The room was filled with art supplies, which must have obviously surprised me, because before I could even ask, he told me that he was an artist. He enjoyed sculpting most, but he would occasionally paint and was beginning to acquire a taste for photography. I told him how photography and art fascinated me and that the company I worked for was interested in seeing if art programs could potentially save children all over the world from doing terrible things. He smiled. He offered to show me some of his work, but explicitly said that he would never show anyone an unfinished piece. That made perfect sense to me. His work seemed to be very expressive - not necessarily of himself, but of what he saw in the world. The paintings he showed me spoke of repression and angst, family and wealth, confusion and childhood.

I felt myself overstaying my welcome, so I excused myself and retreated to the safety of my apartment and the novel that had been my companion. About an hour later, there was a tapping at my door. It was Rif. I took a deep breath before opening the door. I had left my bread in his apartment. I wanted to invite him in for coffee to have some further discussion, but I did not have very much furniture. He commented on my lack of furniture, thinking it was funny that I had been living there for over a month and had only acquired a chair. I hoped that he would offer to take me furniture shopping, but we weren’t friends yet, though he did recommend a few stores.

That week, work began to keep me busy again. There were meetings upon meetings to determine what the next project would be. Presentations were made by other organizations that needed help. One of these presentations was made by a duo, an outspoken, self-righteous woman and a gentle, caring man. After the presentation, which was well done and convincing, there was opportunity for individual conversation with the presenters. I avoided the confrontational alpha female at all costs and ended up hiding in the corner looking over my notes, when the male approached me. He asked if I had any questions. I offered up one off the top of my head and he seemed slightly thrown off although he commended me on my question. He gave it some thought and finally said that his opinion on the particular deficiency in the social climate did not actually matter and that all he really wanted to see was an improvement that would lead to an ultimate resolution of the problem. I thanked Miss America for her time. He chuckled and asked if I was going to ask him if he had any questions for me. I asked him. He asked me for dinner on Friday night. I was not quite sure what to say. As always, I was never a person of words.

Before the week was out, I had spent some quality time with Rif on the bus ride home from work. He didn’t seem to care where I was coming from or what book I was reading, as though he already knew it all and there was no need to discuss it further. He politely asked me what my weekend plans were and I figured that I might as well not be evasive, so I told him. He seemed to be enthused by the idea. Before I knew it, we were sitting at his kitchen table sipping red wine and discussing his rather complicated and confusing long-running relationship with a woman whom he seemed to see less and less, but felt as though he was still madly in love with. In that one evening, he told me the intimate details of this particular relationship in comparison with past relationships. I noticed no pattern. He stopped suddenly and admitted to feeling rather rude. I told him it didn’t matter, because if he wasn’t talking at that point, I would not have been saying a word either. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to tell him about my love for Nathan. I thought that I wanted to, but there was no possibility of bringing it up. Then he asked what made me move there. I looked him in the eye and he said, “You ran away from love.” My reaction to this statement would be the determining factor in how I would live the rest of my life. I had only seconds to decide what I was going to say or do. I looked away. He could see directly into me and that scared me so much. I admitted to it. There was no point in denying it or avoiding it. He left it at that. He knew that I didn’t want to talk about it and he was right. It was nice to get a fresh start with someone and tell him things without him knowing about my past.

The date with Frank went well. He was an intelligent and charming man. There was something about him that felt comfortable and I was not sure if that was something I wanted to feel. We spoke over dinner in great detail about past projects. There was that common passion between us, and our work would always come first. I was okay with that. He walked me to the door after dinner and told me what a good time he had. I smiled at him, and he said good night. I walked up to my apartment and lay on the couch pensively. I woke up the next morning with a rather sore neck and a feeling that things were about to go back to how they had been before I left.

Several days later, I got a call from him asking if I wanted to go out some time. Things began to pick up from there. While my company did not choose his organization for the next project, Frank and I still managed to spend a lot of time together. Rif and I also became very good friends. He began to educate me about the arts and invite me to his openings. He was a very interesting character. He was honest and thoughtful, something I noticed the first time I met him. I also knew that I would always have that impending crush on him - the one I could never have.

One afternoon, I heard the soft tapping on my door that could only be Rif. He walked in smiling. After the pure torture and heartache that this woman had put him through, they had been up the entire night and she had finally explained it all to him. They were going to be happy together. I hugged him out of sheer delight. There was nothing better than seeing a good friend smile. He asked what I was up to, and I told him I was preparing for a date with Frank. He smiled and told me that he would not wait up.

Frank had prepared dinner at his apartment, which was on the other side of town. He lived in a loft, and whether it was actually a loft or just a run down building, I was not sure. He made it his own. It was clear that he never intended to live there long, but had become accustomed to his surroundings and now did not want to part with this component of his life. He opened the door with the telephone in his hand. He had a prestigious degree in economics, which was beginning to catch up with him. I walked in and slipped my shoes off. I could tell that he was desperately trying to get off the phone, with little success. I peeked into the kitchen to see what he had prepared, but he swiftly blocked me. I hate surprises.

Finally the call ended. He apologized and sat me at the candlelit table. He served me a plate of pasta with pesto. I hate pesto. The wine and the conversation were incredible enough to make me forget about the bitter taste in my mouth. He brought out chocolate covered strawberries and swore to me that he had made them by hand. I still didn’t believe him. We were suddenly sitting very close and slipping strawberries into each others mouths. How fucking romantic. I had never felt so comfortable in someone’s arms before. He led me behind the couch, hit a key on the remote control and we began slow-dancing in his living room. This was ridiculous, but I couldn’t help enjoying it. There is a reason that clichés are overdone. He ran his fingers through my dark hair and I saw the passion rise in his eye. I sighed and I could feel him smiling. It was nice. I hadn’t felt wanted in a long time.

The next morning, we found ourselves under his covers, hands tightly holding, bodies tangled together. Smiles galore. I didn’t know what to do next. It had been a while since I’d had such a night. I did not have the urge to stay like that forever. I kind of wish I had.

When I returned home, it seemed like Rif had been waiting for me. No, he wasn’t on the front stairs of the building, or wandering the lobby, or loitering outside my door, but when I knocked on his, he opened it instantly. He knew very well what had gone on the previous night, but was still driven to make me admit to it. He was that kind of guy. I looked him in the eye. Brown eyes, beige hair. I never noticed how strange it looked. Frank had almost green eyes and dark black hair, like night. I could feel it through my fingers.

I wanted to pack my bags and leave, just so things would not change and I could remember them being this good. It was a thought that kind of scared me because it seemed like a realistic action for me to take. Fear is a powerful thing.

The following months were spent changing lives and inspiring young people. They were also spent in the arms of a wonderful man who gave it his all; who could not carry a tune, but whose singing made me smile wide; who always found my keys when I was running late and about to hyperventilate; who loved me. I want to say we were that annoying couple who spent all our time together. I have always wanted one of those relationships. We were not. I saw him a lot. We talked a lot. We left each other notes in the margins of novels. True romantics. We were not, however, attached at the hip. I spent a lot of time at Rif’s apartment, admiring him work. He would never let me see his works in progress, but I watched him sketch and paint – without actually seeing anything at all. It made me want to photograph him as art in progress. He encouraged the idea when I finally couldn’t contain myself. He even lent me his camera.

It had been nearly a year since I had moved out there. Things had gone as planned. Still, I had not met the woman of Rif’s life. I was truly not sure why, and I thought it had something to do with the unique nature of their lives. Though he had only met Frank briefly, that was about to change. He began by slipping an envelope under my door. It was an invitation to a soirée at his house. It was a printed invitation with an RSVP slip, which I formally mailed.

I watched the steam from my tea billow out against the window. These papers would have to wait. My bicycle led me around and across town. I was standing outside his door. The door opened and welcomed me in.

He sat and read the paper and I watched him closely. I admired his commitment to the world at large; to the economy, sports and entertainment. I strayed from the thought of staying au courant; I cheered for the underdog. The camera focused on his intently focused eyes. It’s not clear to me whether he ever noticed or minded when I would photograph him. There was an air about him. It was somewhere between confidence and arrogance; between nonchalance and not caring. It made me jealous that he could hide it so well; that perpetual fear of the world wrecking itself. I photographed our bodies tangled on the couch in a mesh of sweaters and socks as a breeze grazed across the room. Suddenly I was being chased by the camera and finally cornered. He snapped one of me between the bathroom and the closet.

I wondered who this man was.

It was an autumn day that stayed in my heart forever and based on what happened next, it was like he knew I was coming that afternoon. We made our way to the cottage. We were armed with champagne and film, smiles and lust. There was a deck and pier which hung in the water. The reflection of the trees on the water left me breathless. The moment swept me off my feet and I could not remain in control. This could not be happening to me. I felt the warmth of his arms around me and breathed in deep. I’m not sure if we said a single word that entire night. We sat on the deck staring out into the infinite, together. My eyes could not meet his and it did not matter. It was a simple evening, spent with a feeling and a person.

The next morning we returned to town. I felt so loved and happy and wonderful. There was a feeling of completeness that I hadn’t experienced in so long. He caressed my hair and kissed my forehead and I fit perfectly under his arm. We arrived to Rif’s apartment arm-in-arm and I saw her.

She was a striking woman. Her hair was dark blond and her eyes were blue. She was tall and very slender and her face was kind. Rif was clearly madly in love with her. He smiled at the very sight of her. I rushed over to hand him the bottle of wine we had brought and to meet the woman of his heart. Her name was something I could not pronounce correctly. It was something fun and hip and full of class. Everyone just called her M anyway.

I spoke to her and Rif for a few moments and turned to see Frank chuckling with another woman. This woman was barely wearing a top. I suddenly felt myself fill with rage and hurt. The woman was very interested – there was an occasional pat. I turned away and looked back at him. This time he was facing me and waved his hand for me to come over. He introduced me to the woman and she chuckled at everything he said. He pulled me away from her and told me how stupid she was and how he desperately want to be standing with me. That made me really happy. The best feeling to experience is feeling wanted. And I felt wanted standing in that apartment holding cheap wine and eating expensive cheese on mediocre crackers. I finally felt happy. I grabbed a napkin, scribbled it down and slipped it under a jar that sat on the counter. It gave me joy to see Rif smile. Frank pulled out his camera and had someone photograph the four of us together. It snapped as we were mid-laughter. There is nothing better than being mid-laughter.

We stayed late and helped clean up. This wonderful woman seemed genuine and I was worried for Rif. She had to leave in the morning. I worried she wouldn’t return and that he would never recover. When the apartment was back in order, another round of wine was poured and we sat on respective couches and smiled at each other comfortably. It seemed like none of us wanted the night to end, but it had to, inevitably. Frank initiated the journey across the hall.

He opened the bedroom window and I could feel the breeze sweep in. I shivered. Frank wrapped a blanket around me and brought me a glass of water and helped me hold it until it was empty. It was clear that I had had quite a bit to drink and it was apparent to me that Frank didn’t want me to be uncomfortable in any way. I thought it was very sweet of him to help me get ready for bed. He refused to kiss me because there was an unspoken rule about kissing drunken girls. I kissed him anyway. He pulled my feet up into bed.

The next morning I woke up in love and scared. Frank was there beside me, with me. I thought about all the possible ways today would end and there were several conclusions that had me never see Frank again. I wasn’t going to let that happen. Not this time. I rolled into his arms and he held me close. There was that feeling again. If I was home with the flu, he would have come to stay and take care of me. He would not stay away for fear of catching it himself. I got out of bed and made breakfast. He was showered and ready to face the day by the time the pancakes were on the table. He demolished the stack I placed before him and headed towards the door without a word. He turned before he left and said he was sorry. I questioned him and he told me that he had to go to the office. I pushed him against the door and tried to convince him to stay. It felt like he was going to choose me, it really did, but it just made us both sadder when he closed the door quietly behind him. I almost got angry about it but I knew that for each of us, work came first.

I was quite sad and decided that I would go across the hall to keep myself occupied. Rif was quite surprised to see me. He had expected that Frank and I would spend the day together. So had I. We spoke for a little while, but then we stopped. We were both quite upset about being deserted by our loved ones. Then Rif asked for my assistance with a project. He had to create mannequins for a high-class store and he was going to use M as his model, but she was out of town now. I agreed. I changed into a tank top and stood for hours while Rif traced me with wire. He needed to have this method perfected for when M would pose for him. There was suddenly an awkward moment, where we found our faces close together as he strung the wire. He looked up and we were eye to eye, lip to lip and our instinct was to give in. We didn’t. We just giggled and pretended as though nothing had happened. That was a sign that things were strong between us. The day ended with a bottle of soda; the sight of wine made us sick. There was cheese and crackers and feet up against the balcony railing.

The door suddenly pounded and Rif and I both fell out of our reclined positions. Rif looked through the peephole and opened the door. It was Frank and he seemed furious. Then he saw me and looked relieved. He had been calling all day and I hadn’t answered my phone. He was glad that I was all right. He still seemed mad but I knew it was because he loved me because the second he saw me, he pulled me in close and held me there. Later that night, I asked why he was more angry than worried when he came to Rif’s door. He told me that he knew that I was ok and that I was just away from my phone. I asked him why he knew I was ok and he said that his god could not be so cruel and let something happen to me. An average girl would have thought it was a sweet thing to say, but I took him seriously and let myself fall asleep in his arms.

The next morning I apologized profusely and he didn’t seem to care. He left without saying a word. Work was coming between us. He no longer worked for a noble organization but rather a commercial one. It made him miserable, but it paid the bills and there was nowhere else for him to work. He did his job with pride and diligence, but in no way did he help the ‘corporate machine’, as he referred to it, go above and beyond its current standings. I began to worry that it would change. I was worried and nervous that I had messed things up. I was standing at the window, staring intently at the building across the street, wondering if the lives of those people were simpler, when there was a tapping at the door. I knew it was Rif, but I didn’t want to see him and I didn’t want him to see me like that. But he kept knocking; he knew I was in there.

I must have looked like hell in pajama bottoms, because as soon as I opened the door, Rif hugged me for a long time. He didn’t ask what was wrong or what had happened; he just wanted me to feel better. Finally, we sat down and he showed me why he had come over. He had developed the photographs I had taken with his camera. He watched me flip through each of them and I could see in his eye that I wasn’t seeing everything that I should have. He put his arm around me and led me to the couch where we examined the photographs together. He pointed out everything that was wrong with every photograph. He then explained what made them extraordinary in his eyes. Finally, he made me tell him what was going on. We smiled at each other. I realized what a fluke friendship this really was - the odds of us finding each other were slim.

There was Chinese takeout for dinner and fortunes were revealed. The future seemed promising that day.

Two days later was the next time that I heard from Frank. He told me he was going crazy without me. The work was piling up on him and he had been avoiding me as a result. That scared us both. He wanted to see me. The following day during lunch, I surprised him at his office. It was a wreck. This was the most organized man known to Earth. I had hoped that he would have been happier to see me. He still took the time to have lunch with me, but he was distracted as hell. There was nothing I could do. We sat in near silence in his office with the door closed and locked. It felt as though we had something to hide. I put down my sandwich and walked around to his side of the desk. His arm slipped around me and we turned to face the window and the incredible view that this massive corporation owned. There was a thought inside me, a deep hope that we would find ourselves in each other arms on the soft plush carpet. Instead, we were standing there, motionless. I did not know what to do. When I left, he told me he loved me. It tore me up inside to be unable to help.

The weekend held promise, until Frank appeared at my door. Eyes full of tears, he said he had to cancel. He stayed briefly for dinner but I just wanted to hug him and hold him in my arms. It would never happen. He left in a huff and panic. I walked across the hall to Rif’s apartment. He was glad to see me. His love had not returned yet and he needed to make the plaster model of her. I offered to help since I had nothing to do that weekend. This was the real deal. We spent a long time standing together while he measured and outlined me once again in copper. It was late; we began again early the next morning. By mid afternoon, the three models had been set to dry. I was covered in a special type of plaster. Rif used a specialized substance to cleanse his hands, but I was still covered in the material. He volunteered his shower to me, so I would not mess mine up, and helped me remove the excess plaster from my arms and legs. The next thing I knew, I could feel the stream of hot water against my back and Rif’s hands everywhere.

When it had all ended, I knew that I had to tell Frank and that everything was over. That was it.

Frank came over that evening and I told him everything. I could never lie to Frank - he did not deserve it. He didn’t appear angry with me. It seemed as though he blamed himself for everything and I hated the thought of that. Looking him in the eye, I told him I loved him. He told me the same thing, walked out the door and out of my life.

The next few mornings I walked to work. There was a shop I passed by every day and one day I saw them - the plaster casts of my body. I wanted to walk in there and smash them all. I didn’t make it to work that day. I went home instead, pulled out my suitcases and filled them. I walked out the door and out of that town. There was nothing left for me there. There was no escaping myself.