The Russian Next Door

CHAPTER 13 - Adrian

Time was passing quite quickly. It was already the middle of October now. A month has passed since the day I kissed Adrian. From that day forward, we were officially a couple. We were spending a lot of time together, enjoying each other's company. Oh, and there was a lot of kissing involved. But we never got over first base. Such a bummer, right? Especially with a guy like that. But I wasn't really feeling ready. And we were just at the beginning of our relationship. So we had plenty of time on our hands I thought.

He was such a nice, gentle and gallant guy. He was always bringing me flowers when he came to my place. Even though I never really liked roses, because they seemed too cliché for me (and this was kind of ironic, right? considering my name and all). But the first time he came to my door with a big bouquet of dark pink roses, I couldn't find the courage to tell him the truth. His face was so bright. But over time, I really came around and started to like them. But only if they were brought to me by him. Otherwise, no chance I would accept a bouquet of roses.

He had this habit of taking me out to the shadiest cafés in town but with good music, where we would spend our nights drinking (me tea, him alcohol; another bad habit of his), talking and sometimes making up stories about the other customers, turning all of it into a contest every time, trying to come up with the most ambiguous scenarios about the people around us.

On weekends, we would just stay inside, cuddling on my couch all day long, watching movies and filling our bellies with all kind of snacks. As the sun sat, we would go outside, wandering the empty streets holding hands.

Sometimes, I would have to study for some test, so he would bring his canvases and instruments and would paint all day long, keeping me company. I was pretty satisfied with myself for determining him to be more interested in his education. When he had no imposed theme, he would let me pick up a plant that I was studying or any other thing that crossed my mind and he would paint it in different manners. Once, he even painted me as a caricature for one of his classes, drawing my hair in a long afro manner, making my eyes and my lips huge. I looked really funny, and I succeeded to convince him to make me a copy, so that I could hang it in my room.

This man even tried to teach me some things related to cooking. Suuuuuch a bad idea. We were so close to burning the house down. Well, not we. Mostly me. Adrian was really skilled into the kitchen, and I enjoyed sitting on a chair and watch him cook. But he thought that he could be some kind of teacher, so he wanted to show me how to bake some cupcakes, that we were going to fill with some home-made caramel cream. This was such a good idea. The not so good idea was to let me make the cream. After burning the sugar two times, I got expelled from the kitchen, and Adrian got on by himself. I had already warned him about my non-existent cooking skills, but he didn't listen.

Another thing he didn't succeed to do was to teach me some Russian. He has made this thing his personal project and tried and tried to make me learn some words. But the explanations entered through one ear and got out through the other in a matter of seconds. Unfortunately, he had to give up after only one week, because even if my life would have depended on that, I couldn't pronounce right not even a goddamn word. You should have seen the frustration in his eyes when he said that he was done.

All in all, this guy was amazing, in spite of his little bad habits (that I convinced him not to give into, at least when he was with me) and I really got to have feelings for him, over this month that we spent together. He was making me happy when he was around. And he was so different from all those guys I used to date back in high school. He was nice with me and was not pushing me to do that thing I didn't feel ready to do.

But, as all the good things often have to come to an end, our beautiful daydream turned to dust on a fatidic Sunday night, as we were watching Wreck-It Ralph.