Former lover

Something had upset her the moment she broached the subject of her first boyfriend. I had answered a question in her long interrogation by which she was trying to clear up her doubts about events that she had not had the courage to question until then.

He outlined to me in a few words the situation of some friends. I tried to smooth over the accusations inferred from the irritation in his voice. I told him:

- People change, correct themselves - I don't want to judge that person.

Especially since I hadn't been there, I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I hadn't been in their shoes. So I didn't know what I was talking about. And then, God forgive me, to get into other people's couples - it's not in my nature, it's not my job.

She probably didn't like my answer, I don't know what she was expecting - did she want me to approve or hold me accountable? She continued with the clarifications requested, instead asking me about her first boyfriend. He left the questions in the air, almost teasing me as if he was expecting what I was going to answer. But I repeat, we were not close friends and I had to distance myself from giving incriminating and discriminatory answers.

He almost snapped at me:

- Huh? Now that's good, right?

I don't know what he meant by that remark. He probably expected me to badmouth him for what he had done to her, but I for one didn't know much.

I kept asking myself: did I ever speak ill of him? Was she referring to an email a mutual friend of ours sent some time ago? I criticized that person only once in his life for the way he wrote emails, otherwise I always participated in situations where others criticized him.

I was trying to understand where he was going, but he got to another topic before me. Her second lover—he wanted me to tell him what had happened between him and a girl he had liked. It was such a delicate subject, but I had to tell him the truth: there had been nothing between them.

She had met him at a class and liked him. At an event he asked her to talk to him. He did not know that they were together, because Ariadne had been his teacher. The relationship between the two was icy anyway, no one had realized that there was something between them. I had also met my boyfriend at the same event. We actually knew each other from before but only that day we had the opportunity to see each other more closely. Everyone knew we liked each other. You could read all the emotions on my face, I was so snotty. So bad that his friends invited me to sit with them at the table, even though he was the one who came to issue my invitation.

Ariadna asked me what her ex-boyfriend talked about. I told her that she was very much in love with him and in her naivety she confided in her class. One of the girls said to him: go talk to him. Which he did when he got the courage. And the said one told him that at the moment he was with Ariadna, that he had to be with her because Ariadna had suffered a lot and he had to help her. But it was seen that it turned him upside down. Besides, she also upset Ariadne, who from that moment on hated her with all her soul. Ariadne had interpreted everything as if that person had intervened between them - but on careful recapitulation, she had forgotten that they were not a couple, they had not announced to anyone that they were a couple, and it was not visible from their gestures.

In parallel with this tragedy of Ariadne, another was unfolding. My best friend also liked the same boy. He tried that evening, after the event, while we were getting ready for bed, to spy on me, without success. I was silent. And in the following days, from time to time, he launched questions that remained unanswered. I did not have the courage to tell him that I was in love with him, which others knew for sure, observing what was read on my face. I couldn't even tell him that there was something between us, because there was nothing. Honestly, I didn't even want to talk to him, but he took my hand to introduce me to his friends. He had danced with me almost as much as he had danced with her that evening. I told myself that if he really likes me, he will tell me once and for all. Besides, he had first fallen in love with me one evening, before that event. And... I have such a... predilection for falling in love with those who fall in love with me. I have never been able to fall in love with pictures, but with insinuating glances, oh yes! We were reading each other's eyes and I knew, I knew from the first moment that there was something between us, but... My friend went to him, to talk, to tell him how she felt. And he gave him an ambiguous answer: let's not hurry. Then, a few days later, he called me. My first reply, surprised to hear his voice, was:

- Do you want to talk to Lumideea? I'll give it to you right away on the phone.

- No, I want to talk to you, came his answer - as a test stone for my relationship with Lumideea - which, however, never broke and we never hated each other for this episode that brought many tears to both of us, mine surreptitiously spilled through parking lots through the cars of friends who didn't know what was wrong with me, because no one ever suspected what I was hiding under my silence.

Curious that now life had put Ariadna in the same situation with Vadim. I can only hope that he understood what I, Lumideea, and Ruxi went through.

A few days ago, I had stopped by Vadim and advised him, upon his insinuations that Ariadne had come for him - she had even asked him to let her stay with him for a few days - to talk to her and clarify the situation. In the end, he replied by email that he had someone - I knew that one - and that he did not feel comfortable with her coming to visit. Only he had forgotten how he had flirted with Ariadne, how not long ago he had called her in the hall for a cigarette and how he had given her the false impression that he liked her, as he did with everything. This was a second great thorn he had against me since he saw Ariadne coming to me, and he was forced to make eye contact with her.

Ariadne was stronger—from that moment, realizing who he was and what he was doing, she defied him, following him everywhere he went, like a detective who would soon expose all his swindles.