Don't Answer

I was just preparing myself to take a nap during the two-hours flight that would take me to what seemed to be the worst Christmas party ever, when this girl came and set next to me. She was out of breath, agitated and kept rolling her eyes as if she was about to faint. But really, I cared more about finishing my glass of water before the flight-attendant came by again, with the bin, and I would finally rest. The girl by my side sighed and ran her long, thin fingers through her blond hair. And shot:
"You are gay, right?"
That did indeed catch my attention. But before I could answer, she went on.
"Well, don't answer. Are you in a relationship? Wait. Don't anwser. If you are not, lucky you; if you are, then my advice is that you break up right away, before it gets ugly. See my case..."
And, yes, with no reply from my side, she started to tell her case. Susan, as I later learnt to be her name, only stopped to ask a drink, which she swallowed in half a second, and moved on. Every once in a while she would run her fingers through her hair again, and more oftenly, play with her watch. An H. Stern one, I noticed. But never stopped talking.
Susan met this girl with a very weird name I can't recall, Weird-name was straight and lived in a small town in the country side, but they ended up falling for each other, and dated for almost a year. With loads of break-ups in between, which Susan was pretty fast to elucidate that were not really break-ups, but Weird-name's way of showing she wasn't happy about something. Weird-name, it seemed to me, had also weird ways of doing stuff. After that year, the girl broke up with my flight fellow, but they kept on with the friendship. Susan admitted, rolling her eyes as if I had said something, that obviously you can keep on being friends with an ex-girlfriend - which she was surprised that, at my age and with the experience she guessed I had I didn't know. I soon noticed that Susan was weird herself. Back to her story, their 'friendship' went on with ups and downs, and this was messing up with Susan's life.
"So at some point, my closest friends invited me for a small dinner, which turned out to be a 'Save Susan' sort of operation, and they sat me down and tried to say what should I do. Of course they knew that despite the whole friendship thing I was still in love with her. So they said I should let it go. But please, was I not trying to do so already? I told them I didn't keep any hope, they insisted I did, and I again said I didn't, and it kept going like that till the point when I simply said, 'yes', just so they would stop insisting. They tried, then, to convince me that I should never speak to her again, or I would never let her go. So I said, 'If you stand in the rain, you rink getting wet'. (It's a saying we have in my place)".
She sighed. And, at last, shut up. Then after a few seconds glazing at the seat right in front of her, she played with her watch again and looked at me. I sensed she was expecting me to say something. And you must understand that Susan was probably in her early 20's, whilst I am already old enough not to say how old I am.
"I said that if you stand in the rain, you risk getting wet...", she repeated, just to confirm my suspicions that I was supposed to make a comment.
"And did you?"
"Yes, I did. Both stand in the rain and get wet. Got soaked. And sank right after it..."
I allowed her the bad joke, but just because she had probably been over this story a million times and I might have been the first one to give her the chance of saying it out loud. I guess she didn't like the way it sounded, cos she tried to fix it saying that she didn't ruin her life, but that she got hurt pretty badly. For a moment she stopped again and sighed, and I did think she was about to sink into her own thoughts, but memory lane still had a few yards to be walked on.
Shaking her head, she took over from the rain point, making a smile as if she was saying, "sorry, you are dying to know how this story ends", and told me how the story ended. Weird-girl kept on with ups and downs, and though she dated loads of people, she freaked out every time Susan slept over anybody's place, or went to anybody's party and things like that. In other words, Weird-girl wanted to live her life, whilst Susan would still play the girlfried. Worst of it is, that Susan did play the girlfriend for a long time. Almost 3 years had gone by since they broke up, and Susan had never kissed anyone else in this time. Then one day Susan is bying the newspaper and who she meets? Pregnant Weird-girl.
"Can you imagine how I felt?", she didn't gime time to even nod, "Do you know how it feels like to wait for a girl for 3 years, a confused girl who says she doens't love you anymore but is jealous about every one you might have the chance to kiss? Don't answer. You don't."
A flight attendant stopped next to us and went to the microfone to communicate that the plane would be landing in about ten minutes, that we should all fasten our seat-belts, and thanked us for flying with that company.
Susan looked at me, smiled, and sank into deep silence. I must confess I was dazzled.
Plane landed and hallways got full of people waiting to take off. Susan didn't make a move, not even looked at me. I didn't know if I should tell her we had already arrived, or if she had something else in mind. I chose for the second one and waited. When the hall ways cleaned up, she quickly stood up and, without even waving good bye, walked quickly towards the door. I got my hand luggage and went the same way. Almost at the end of the tunnel and right before we would get into the airport, she suddunly stopped, came back the few steps she was ahead of me and fired again.
"Do you think it was a mistake to come here looking for her after what she did? Don't answer. Merry Christmas, and say hello to your wife", and she went away with fast, noisy steps.
I'm not married, Susan, - I thought to myself - not anymore... And I rather make a mistake then wonder forever what would have been of my life if only I had tried. Marry Christmas, girl.

24.fev.2008