2024: diary of a girl in her 20s

06.22 Ivar is back home

On Saturday I awoke at around 10. I procrastinated in bed until I texted Paulie to come to my bedroom and she came to bed and we talked for a while. Then we decided to have breakfast, so we went to the supermarket, bought bread and milk and then we had breakfast in the balcony looking out into A-Lane's neighbourhood.

At around 11:50 I showered, when Sonny arrived home. Paulie showered after me and then Aline arrived and after some minutes we left my flat to walk to the Polytechnic Institute tramway stop, where someone was picking us up with a car to drive to Sergei's countryside house. We stopped to buy sunscreen, water and beer.

We arrived in the countryside house and Sergei was minding the barbecue, cooking shirtless and I didn't remember him looking so good. He had moles and freckles all around his face, glasses on and his green eyes were shining through, and he was much stronger than I remembered. I talked to some people until Ivar eventually showed up to the surprise, and he greeted everyone and eventually he bumped into Paulie, his girlfriend, and they hugged and everyone clapped.

We had lunch at 14:20 or so, lots of meat and also lots of vegetables, everything was very good. We had cava and beer mostly. I stopped drinking after the second beer because I don't actually like drinking usually.

We then went to some tables up in the countryside, where we had chocolate cake, coffee and shots. Then we went to the pool, but the sun was gone, so plenty of us didn't even get into it.

As we were sitting in a circle talking and drinking, a pigeon flew into the centre and flew to Danny's shoulder and stayed there and everyone began laughing. The pigeon was lost so it stayed with us until nighttime. It went around everybody, passing from hand to arm to head a couple of times. We had a blast with the situation. Eventually we called the telephone number written on its leg and the owner said he would call somebody else that could go get the pigeon. The owner texted saying "leave her there, she'll fly back home eventually".

I went downstairs for a second because I needed a phone charger and I found Sergei changing into clothes because we were going out for dinner. He gave me a small tour of the house and of his room and for a second I wouldn't have minded hooking up with him. I don't know if I've ever mentioned it here but Ivar has confirmed me a couple of times that he finds me very attractive, indeed Ivar ships the two of us as a joke.

Once it became dark, we helped clean around the mess and then we drove to Salinger, to a restaurant where we all had dinner. Everyone ordered pizza and they were quite big and tasty. Sergei sat next to me but we barely talked, I mostly talked to Sonny and Aline, and I'm afraid maybe he thought Sonny and I had something together and that's why we didn't really interact with each other much. I remember the last time I saw him he was quite playful around me, but maybe that's because we were extremely drunk.

It was getting really late and I realised Sonny couldn't go back home to Hauteville because there were no more buses, so I liked that we both assumed that we was going to stay at mine without saying it out loud.

Danny drove us back home and he dropped us off close to Cedric's Square. We walked to my flat, and upstairs I told him we could watch something like a film or a YouTube video to fall asleep, he said okay. I went to the sofa with my Ipad and after some browsing we played a 9h hour ASMR video about medieval English history. I took a pillow and put it close to his lap, like on his leg kind of but not on top of it, like right next to him, a little on top but not fully. I rested my head there to listen the video and suddenly what surprised me is that I felt his hand on my hair and he began caressing me without me asking him to caress my hair. Eventually I fell asleep and he was still caressing, and I woke up at 2:30 or so and I went to bed on my own.

I wanted to write a little about this. I don't know. I'm a bit lost. I don't know how close this means that we are. I don't know to what extent he understands this in the same way I do. Obviously this is a clear indicator of a really strong friendship and deep care for each other, and a pretty stabled level of intimacy between the two of us. But I don't know to what extent he feels like this is slowly developing into something more. Not explicitly, I mean that I feel like I'm very slowly building feelings for him, somehow, because of all of this proximity and care that we have for each other.

This proximity has increased exponentially this past week in Maple Bay. I remember on the train back we were both talking about how it hadn't felt like a week, it barely felt like 2 days together. I don't know to what extent he's going to tell this stuff to his girlfriend, like us falling asleep while me being on his lap and him caressing me to sleep. I don't know if we won't say it because her girlfriend would understandably be upset about it, or because he feels like there is something more to it. I don't know and I don't want to ask nor I want to ask. It is a mess I am not willing to get into, that has the power to potentially break our friendship, and that feels very disrespectful to him and his relationship with Martha.

I even feel guilty just thinking about it. I feel like in a way we are very slowly building feels that are not like super strong (like, it is not the typical situation where you meet someone and you are eager to be with them, and there is so much desire and passion around that and you feel like you can't get enough of them), this is different, like it is a very progressive feeling of comfort settling into my body, and I don't know if in him perhaps too.

I'm fine because as I said, it is not a super strong feeling, I can easily cope with it and be friends like this like we always have been. It's just the fact that he has a girlfriend that is the problem, because I feel we should stop these little actions, but I also don't want to stop being as close as we are. I feel like it is a natural process that it is taking place is and I really don't want to spoil that, but I feel like simply giving in to the feeling and vibing with however the situation develops is unfair for Martha, since I guess I could repress my want of proximity around him, and simply go sleep in my own bed, not be so close to him etc. But yeah the issue is that I don't want to stop, and I don't see him doing much about it either.

But perhaps that is because he doesn't feel like this is a big deal. I really don't know. It is hard for me to imagine a situation in which we have the relation that we have and us not feeling like there could be something more to it. But again, I can't know for sure, because I have not asked, and I will not asked, because that is making the situation too real, and that can bring a lot of negative results that I don't want. So I rather stay like this, on this edge of the situation, and see what comes about it.