Rozel journeys into the park - a world of both beauty and pain. Memories resurface, threatening to consume her. But she presses on, collecting stories that may heal her deeply wounded soul. Will this journey lead to healing and closure, or only deep...
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« We’re starting in 3…2..1 ! » Rozel took a deep breath before pressing the record button on her camera.
« Can you tell us your names, please ? » she asked, focusing on the couple in front of her. Her nervousness started to fade away as she did what she loved the most.
« I’m Charles and she is Nayla, » the man said, smiling and tightening his arm around his beloved woman.
« Beautiful names, » Rozel commented softly, feeling a mix of emotions as she thought of her own parents, but she swallowed them in silence. It wasn’t the first time.
« So, tell me, Charles and Nayla, how did you end up together ? Or how did you meet ? » Rozel asked.
The couple looked at each other and Nayla nodded calmly, indicating to Charles to start.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, as if trying to go back in time to the moment he met the love of his life.
« Well…how did I meet her. How did I meet Nayla… Do not judge me but…I was rolling a joint, » he confessed, chuckling for a bit. « Then I smoked it with her…I don’t exactly remember what I was thinking, but I was lost…and she was…hot. I mean, she still is, but you know what I mean, » he said, making them all smile and trying to hold back laughter at his flirtatious attitude.
« She was just beautiful and I just went with it…and then we talked. I don’t remember what we talked about, but she said I said deep stuff…and by deep stuff, I mean my back then-dead girlfriend. »
Everyone went silent at that moment, and Rozel didn’t imagine it would take that turn, but Charles seemed ready to say more, so she let him.
« I know…you didn’t see that coming, but I learned to accept it…I met Nayla five months after Dalida’s death. I lost her in a car accident. When Nayla saw me in that crackhead mode, that was me for two months before we met. Drunk, stoned, and coked up…that was me for months. Nayla didn’t really know me, she was just a curious college girl at a bar, saw a miserable guy being miserable, decided to join and try smoking…but she ended up with a husband, with more responsibilities. » It was hard for Rozel to decide whether to giggle or remain neutral, but she chose to smile a little to encourage them to keep going. She was glad they were getting comfortable with her and the camera.
« I know I’m supposed to be talking about Nayla right now, that’s the point of the whole question, but I would just…I would like to mention that I loved Dalida so much…I love Dalida so much, » Charles’s voice was shaking. Rozel shifted her eyes to Nayla and noticed the sympathy on her kind face.
« We were together since high school, we were planning on getting married after college…but God had other plans. I was in a pretty bad shape…I even wonder how I haven’t overdosed and choked on my own vomit in the dark…but then Nayla… » he paused and looked at his partner, deeply in her loving blue eyes. « This angel beside me came. She got me out of my mess. Became my friend, or may I say…my savior. She helped me go into rehab, never left my side ever since…I became hers, in every possible way. We got married five years later after we met. For 33 years. »
Rozel felt her heart moving inside her chest. It was an emotional bomb she never expected, maybe that was what she was searching for to make her movie perfect, yet never knew that she would find herself in that vulnerable position.
She shifted her camera and focused on Nayla’s comforting face, having too many questions on her mind, but decided to only pick one.
« Nayla, Charles said that he still loves Dalida. How do you feel about that ? »
« I love her too, » Nayla replied simply and confidently, as if it was ready and always been there on her tongue.
« I deeply love her too. I knew Charles adored her, and he had reasons for that. She made him the way he is today, she took care of his heart, she believed in him, she never damaged him. So how can I not love her ? I don’t think he will or should ever stop loving her…I just… » Nayla stopped and lifted her eyes up to the bright sky as the wind blew her soft silver hair to the right, looking for the right words to proceed with her speech, and Rozel couldn’t wait to hear more.
« I just really believe a person can love more than one person ! Can have more than one soulmate in this world, in this life ! And I don’t mean ‘open relationships’ by that or give an excuse for infidelity…but love is something else. There’s always a place and flexibility in a person’s heart to have someone new to repair what another person broke or left. Dalida loved Charles deeply, she left early, but her soul gave up his heart to me and now I take care of it just like he is taking care of mine…Love is way too easier than we make it look. »
She concluded her words by looking at Charles before their trembling lips printed a kiss on each other that lasted seconds before looking back at the camera, smiling.
"And that's how we met, that's the path that brought us here," Charles concluded his story, prompting Rozel to end the video recording at that moment.
She took her camera down and couldn’t help but sincerely smile at them with admiration. « Wow… » was all her mouth could say out of the million comments she had. She thanked them and showed her appreciation for them and their time, leaving them her Instagram work account to see when the film will be out.
Rozel got her stuff and left, wandering around looking for her next story, a feeling that she hadn’t experienced in a long while floating around her in the air.
« Cute, right ? Well, too bad, you won’t experience it…disappointment, » the voice was back again.
