Anyone But You

|ONE|

I have been walking for some time now and it's weird that I didn't notice the weather, or any of my surroundings. Usually when I'm walking I get into deep thoughts and sometimes I get so lost in them that I find it amazing how I end up home.

It's a beautiful spring day. I don't know how you depict beautiful but a warm partly cloudy day does it for me. I just left the gym and I'm walking towards my house feeling really tired but somehow relieved at the same time. Yes, I do have two completely different feelings in my body because that's how paradoxical I am as a person. It is kinda windy and my unruly hair fly from the left to the right. I reach for my phone to see what time it is and it says it's a little past three in the afternoon. Most of the trees are blooming and a million scents dance in the air around me. After a really long and draining winter, a cold and ugly one, at least to me, these scents and this weather feels like coming home after a really long time. I had missed not being cold wearing only a sweater or leggings. During winters I usually avoid leggings since they're paper thin and I almost froze to death when I tried once. But not this time. I can feel the breeze crashing on my skin and hair. I wonder how do I look in a stranger's eye. This young girl, tall, with long brown (almost reddish) curly hair, wearing her school jumper on top of her gym wear, walking relatively slowly and enjoying every step of her way home. What would they think of me externally? What does one usually think of another person in the street?
I think I was around 13 when I started wondering about other people's lives. I used to walk on the streets and see crowds of people passing by, each and everyone with a distinct story on their backs. I could never really guess what was really going through their minds but that didn't stop my imagination either. I could see some people talking to each other, some of them alone, staring at the ground or in the distance as they went, people with headphones probably listening to music. And that's when I wondered what kind of music they listened to! Of course I didn't know different from my own playlist and I used to get curious almost craving to know what these people listened to in order to get away from the reality.

Whereas, this girl, walking in narrow alleys of her neighborhood, dived into her thoughts, what was her story? Did anyone ever wonder? Were everyone's problems so suffocating that no one stopped to ask about what was I or how was I doing? And why exactly did I come up with this stupidity right now? This is why I said before that I hadn't noticed the nice weather.

Knowingly or unknowingly, I arrived home and I put my shoes on the side. It's such a relief to finally set my feet free and walk on the tiles barefoot. I put my school bag on the first chair that my eyes catch and immediately jump into my bed. What divine word do I use to explain how amazing this feeling is? My whole body coming to peace after this exhausting day.  And like that, without even changing my clothes I get into a deep sleep, a much needed one.

~~~~~~~

When I woke up it was dark outside. I could see the lights of the city from the small window of my room and I checked the time to see how much did my nap take. It was seven thirty so I stood up and got ready for a shower. After that I turned the tv on and continued cooking something since I knew my best friend would be home in an hour or so. She usually works after classes and her shift ends at 9 pm. I go with pasta tonight since I'm feeling lazy and while the water boils I sit on the couch and switch the channels until I find anything worth watching. After many attempts I stop at MTV and US by James Bay is playing. I turn up the volume and get into my cooking before Iris, my best friend comes home.

Me and her were raised together since we lived in the same neighborhood and we've been inseparable ever since. We both love almost the same things and we both chose Political science and international relations in college. Now we're living together in our small apartment in New York, and we both have to work in order to afford it. My family and hers are middle class workers who sacrificed a lot to help us come to this day and we're more than grateful for all the support we got from them. The only way we could commensurate with their efforts and sacrifice was to be the best versions of ourselves and we have achieved that by hard work and tons of hours studying instead of partying or whatever teenagers our age did back in the days.
It didn't last long until the door knob turned and Iris entered the apartment with bags on her hands. Apparently she had been grocery shopping.

"Hey." She says.

"Hi. Come the pasta is ready." I say while taking the plates from the cupboard and putting them on the counter.

"Yummy, is that garlic I'm smelling?" She asks.
Spaghetti with olive oil, garlic and a little bit of chilly pepper are her favorite that's why I prepared them. She works in a coffee shop not far away from our apartment but her employer is an ass and I knew she needed a warm welcoming when she came back from the hell she calls "her job". She starts arranging all the things she bought in the shelves and finally sits on the chair.

After we ate, we watched a movie, Pretty Woman was on so we watched it for the 100th time. That movie is a masterpiece and although none of us wish to have the same background as Julia Roberts in the movie, we both wish we could have her luck.
Iris already has a boyfriend, a really caring and loving one at that, but I'm the one lacking the other "half". That's too cringy to be said since as a person I'm really independent and I hate clinging on others or depending on them. I swear even if I were wrong I would leave my beloved other in the middle of the argument and never return unless he begged everyday.
I don't know if that's a good or a bad quality but maybe my lack of experience makes me this way. Or maybe I'm too proud of myself and can't stand getting my empowered female figure in front a a creature of the other sex. Yeah, that's a weird way to refer to men, but that's what I truly believe. Sometimes my friends tell me I'm wrong, and sometimes I believe that too.
Once a friend of mine said:
"With all this pride you have, I hope someone so amazing comes someday and sweeps you off your feet so badly that you forget your existence."

That was a really harsh remark to be made and I've wrapped my mind around it many times but I've always hoped that she doesn't get her way.

If only the me of that time knew what was to come and how I would handle the rollercoaster called "a life wrapped around him".