The last box was still empty. There were going to be the last few things that were still out in the apartment. I put down my Vinyl records, my whiskey bottles, a red wine, a few books, a statue of Ramses II – handmade by Alabaster stone which I had over overpaid for, in my last trip to Cairo – and a small diary whose page were more empty than full. I was about to close it with tape when one of the movers came to me, holding a black shoe box.

“Found this under the bed” – he said and placed it on a chair nearby. I took it in my hands and without opening I knew what it was. My perfectly new and never-worn boxing shoes. And my eyes fell on the box on the floor. All it held were my possessions, but truth be told, it held his memory more than anything else. It held who I had become since I met him almost five years ago. I realized now, that not only I had loved him and adored him, but because I had missed him and wanted to keep him closer, I had picked up his habit and became a version of him.

Five years ago, when we met, I was just a girl – free, young, and wild. I remember us driving to the holy city, me in the passenger seat of his Porsche, with my feet up and I turned the volume of the music up to the sky. God, how much he must have hated it. Didn’t say a word back then, but years later we made fun of that memory while drinking on a rooftop in Bangkok.

Yes, here’s another thing I’ll always connect with him – Bangkok, the amazing city I fell in love with at first sight – just like I had fallen for him. Coming to think of it now, it was more than a love at first sight, it was love at every sight. Anytime I looked at him, I fell in love all over again…

All we had in this life were little fragments, cropped pieces of a bigger picture that when put together, did not include a future for us, as I might have hoped at first. But to be honest, I’m not sure I would have wanted any other way. He had broken me in every chance he got. And I forgave him in each of those times because with him I learned to love without conditions.

For him, I felt love in my core. In my blood. In my bones…

And I can tell the exact moment when I fell in love with him. It happened on the second night we spent together. After spending all day together, he booked a sushi place for our date night, and ordered champagne and wine. With his fancy watch, expensive clothes, and his best “lover behavior”, he tried to impress me. Sure, it flattered my ego, but in reality, it did very little. He was a sophisticated gentleman and would have done this for any of his chosen companions.

But then, after that, we lied in bed together, I was in his masculine arms, skin on skin, and I asked him “What is your story? Why are you here?”

That was the beginning of a very long night. I listened to all he said, I read his silence too, but most importantly I didn’t judge the hard parts and I accepted his ugly truths. That night he was vulnerable. He wasn’t on the pedestal of the “perfect man”. That night he was a man, a man with flaws, desires, mistakes. He was a man with a past, a present, and a future – that I knew immediately I had no permanent place on. That night he was honest. He told no lies. He spoke his soul. It’s amazing how a comfortable space can reveal people’s true colors. And it was right there, that I fell in love with him. With his most vulnerable self, that he managed to hide so well. With all of his damaged parts. With all of his flaws. I loved the parts of him, that maybe he wasn’t so proud to have. I loved every inch of his. He held me tight that night, we wept and made love more intensely than ever.

In the years that followed, people called me naive. I heard them telling me how I was being manipulated by his fancy words or actions. But they never knew. They never understood that I didn’t love him because of those, or because he was perfect. And even if he never deserved my love – or even if he never loved me – I’d still love him the same. Because love is not selfish. Love doesn’t require an exchange. Love isn’t perfect. And he wasn’t perfect but I loved him because he was real. And that’s why he was great to me. He still is. Even after these years, and truthfully, he will always be.

To me, he is everything: Good and bad included;
To me, he is the climax of the highest happiness I have ever known;
To me, he is the lowest point of my life – the one which you tell yourself: “If I survive that, I can survive anything else”;
To me, he is the light I hold within. He is every reason behind my being, whether he is present in my life or not!

I remember in one of our calls after we fought, I told him – “You know that I will leave you someday, don’t you? I will find someone else and stop talking to you!”. He laughed, with his arrogant-confident voice that I loved, and said – “Never. You’ll never leave me. Even when you’re married.”

And I knew then, the same as I know now, I can never leave him. He is what I have become. He is all that I am made of. He is the pain I compare all of my miserable suffering with. He is the love I aim to receive someday.

And I don’t know if he really loved me. I have not the smallest clue if he ever stops and thinks of me while he is happy, hoping to share the news with me. But I need him like I never needed anyone. I need him because if I don’t have him, I don’t have myself. I don’t know who I am if you take him away from me…

I, once again, threw my eyes at the box on the floor. Pieces of vinyl were of some of Coldplay, or Godfather’s movie track – one of his favorites, or jazz that I listened to while drinking whiskey. My whiskeys were a habit I picked up from him – I came to love it on my own, but he was what made me take on it. Same as the book – It was one of his suggestions. The wine was what we had drank together on our last dinner. The alabaster statue? I had bought it as a gift from him, which I never managed to give, so it decorated my house now. In that little dairy, there were only five written pages, with the last one dated on his birthday two years ago. It said “Today is his birthday, He called me and we spoke for 17 minutes and 53 seconds. I love him. It was a good day!” And the boxing shoes, I bought them when I registered for boxing classes, well, because he did boxing almost every morning…

I never got to wear the shoes for the same reason I stopped writing in that diary two years ago. For the same reason I didn’t give him the alabaster statue a year ago, or that I never listened to the second side of the vinyl four years ago. And for the same reason, there were unopened bottles of wine and unfinished bottles of whiskey.

I never managed to stay happy for too long with him. So something that broke me had come along and had made me cut him off my life. But never could!

So here I was, sitting in an almost empty apartment, with a box that had his name written all over it. However, that was all I had become.
This is who I am now. I keep the songs’ volume a little lower, drink whiskey, and play sports like tennis and boxing.

He had grown me up. He had made me better. How could I ever let him go?

I threw the shoes in the box when the guy from the movers approached me again. “Where does this box go? – He asked – Abandoned or the new apartment truck? The guys will leave now.”
“It’s okay, – I replied – I will leave this box here, maybe for the new tenant”.

After the guy left, I taped the box shut and walked out, because I realized I didn’t need those things anymore to connect me with him… I had me!

I love myself because of him. And for it, I will forever be grateful to him…

©fiordalipi