Reality Shmeality

Chapter Twenty-Three

Time was flying by, and I was getting anxious about Ana's arrival. I started planning different things to do while mapping out the route we would take to South Africa. I introduced Mylan to Peter and the two hit it off wonderfully. That was a weight off of my shoulder because I didn't want to leave Peter high and dry with no one to help him with his English. Mylan was eager to learn Swahili as he had already picked up quite a bit in his limited time in Tanzania. It was the perfect match.

I hadn't spent as much time with Polina as I would have liked because we were both busy with our projects. Kili Crafts for Kids was a huge success and the number of kids attending kept growing. A new volunteer from the hostel who had been an elementary school teacher for years back in Canada joined Polina full-time to help run the project. It made a world of difference for Polina, who was now able to focus on growing the project and introducing art into the lives of more children. I finally had the chance to sit down with Polina to tell her that Ana would be coming and staying at the hostel.

"Why are you still worried, Flower? Did I not make myself clear from the beginning that I would not make this awkward? I thought you told her about your situation here and that you had been with someone else. Do you think she will be weird about it?"

"That's just how I am. I worry about everything. She knows there is a girl here, though I obviously didn't say it was the Russian girl named Polina staying at the hostel. As long as you're cool I will try to relax a bit. I don't know why I worry so much. I just don't ever want to hurt anyone, especially someone like you or someone like Ana. I never had any success with relationships in my past. I had been with one girl in my life before Ana and you were the only one after her. That isn't exactly a lot of experience, so I never really figured out how to act around others."

"Well Flower, I am happy to be your first fuck buddy, and I mean that. I'm not saying that to make you feel bad," she said laughing.

But it did make me feel bad. I never thought of her as a 'fuck buddy' and I never wanted to think of anyone like that. To me that sounded awful. Polina was special to me and had I not fallen for Ana, I would most likely have tried everything to make something work with Polina, even though I knew she wasn't looking for anything serious. That was one of the things that made us so different. I was always very mature for my age, but she was in her late-twenties and I wasn't even twenty. She had experienced so much more than me. She never had problems getting guys, being so confident and beautiful. Getting girls was never even a thought for me until this trip. My only focus growing up was art. It was never girls or friends or sports like everyone else I knew in high school. So as much as I matured in ways my peers didn't, I was far behind with the social norms that were more common with people my age.