a journey 3

Cologne. Sunday, 2 March 2008. 16:50

10 years ago, he came to her class as a transfer student, cold and unfriendly. His parents' messy divorce had taken its toll on him, making him lose interest and hope, in everything you could possibly imagine. His eyes were filled with wrath. A kind of burning rage. But while everyone else shied away, she came to him, and offered her friendship.

They became very good friends. Not best friends, but very good friends. They almost got together, but somehow didn't. There were a million plausible reasons. But the outcome, there was only one.

She knew that a lot had to do with another girl.

In the end, they moved on. They could have slipped out of each other's lives just like that, but Fate played her last hand.

She got posted to London for a year. For her first weekend, she decided to visit him in Cologne, where he had been working for the past 3 years.

To meet an old friend, she told her boyfriend back in the States.

She was apprehensive at first, not knowing what to expect: would they still be able to talk and confide in each other like the old times, or would they simply be awkward, polite strangers?

They hit it off from where they had left off, as though they had never parted, as though they were back in the days of high school, even though they are both now long past that age of innocence. "Good friends always have things to talk to each other about," he had told her once. "Even if they haven't been talking for a while."

The weekend was a whirlwind of activities. She arrived on Friday night, and they climbed to the top of the Cathedral on Saturday, went to the original house where the eau de cologne was produced, visited the Chocolate Museum because she simply loved chocolates, and topped it off with a dinner by the Rhine. It was too bad that the river cruises weren't in service at this time of the year.

"You have to come back again," he had said.

They went for breakfast at a café near his place, before taking a walk in the empty old quarter of the town. He cooked a lunch of paella, topped off with apple pies and a good Italian wine.

Before they knew it, the weekend was ending, and it was time to return to London, back to normalcy. She almost didn't want to go, but they were now at the airport, waiting for her flight back to London.

There was still time. So they sat at a café, with music playing in the background. Just as well, because they only sat there silently, his latte macchiato and her hot chocolate barely touched.

"That's my favourite group," he said, in reference to the song playing in the café.

"Why?"

"I like their music, and I like the lead singer. I like her voice a lot. And she's pretty," he smiled to himself. "She used to be a choir girl in church, and now she sings with this band, sometimes rock. So it's like an unlikely combination. The beauty of irony."

She was a choir girl in the church. The church he went to after he moved to their old town.

Hearing him say that, she suddenly felt foolish for letting her thoughts stray, for briefly reminiscing about the past, for almost wishing that they could try to make it work again. For even daring to entertain such impossible thoughts.

"Good evening ladies and gentlemen, Flight LH47 to London is now ready for boarding at…"

"I guess I have to go now," she said, getting up.

"I'll help you with your bag," he said. She allowed him to help her with that, and they walked towards the gate.

"You have to come back again," he said, handing her bag back to her.

She didn't answer that, and he kissed her lightly on the cheek. "Goodbye."

She wasn't sure if she should come back.

She still loved him, but he still loved her.