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  Words "A Brief Story Of Those That Leave"

  Lorena Franco

  Translated by Sophie Elizabeth Murten

  “Words "A Brief Story Of Those That Leave"”

  Written By Lorena Franco

  Copyright © 2017 Lorena Franco

  All rights reserved

  Distributed by Babelcube, Inc.

  www.babelcube.com

  Translated by Sophie Elizabeth Murten

  “Babelcube Books” and “Babelcube” are trademarks of Babelcube Inc.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Words "A Brief Story Of Those That Leave"

  PROLOGUE

  WORDS

  MELANCHOLY

  ERA

  SOLITUDE

  EPHEMERAL

  COMPASSION

  HOPEFULLY

  SERENDIPITY

  FORGET

  OUTCOME

  Words

  «A brief story of those that LEAVE»

  Lorena franco

  Translated by Sophie Elisabeth Murten

  ©WORDS

  Original title in spanish: Palabras “Una breve historia de los que se van”

  Copyright © 2017 Lorena Franco

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any format by any means without the prior written permission of the Publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  PROLOGUE

  My name is Emma. And this is not the typical story in which girl meets boy, they fall in love and they live happily ever after. No. Almost no one talks about that moment in which the boy leaves the girl or vice versa. Almost no one speaks of falling out of love. It is much easier to talk about happiness, about fulfilled dreams and love stories that last forever. However, no one knows what happens afterwards to the two protagonists of the story, when on the last page of the novel the word END appears. Because nothing is forever. Nothing lasts eternally. This is the continuation of a story that did not turn out to be a fairytale...

  “Don’t give up,

  That’s what life is,

  Continue the journey,

  Follow your dreams,

  Unlock time,

  Move the rubble and

  Uncover the sky.”

  (Mario Benedetti)

  I have believed in Prince Charming since I was a little girl. I always dreamed of my wedding day, the day on which I would be the most beautiful bride in the world. I would dress in white and on my father’s arm, I would walk down the long aisle of the church, crowded with people and beautiful flowers. In the background, the wedding march would play, and I would smile splendidly. And young girls with golden curls would scatter red rose petals. I was almost there. I was two months from seeing my dream come true, and yes. I met a Prince Charming. He was called Diego. But what no one had told me when I was young was that a Prince Charming can also break your heart into a thousand pieces. Now, my wedding dress is unused, hidden at the back of the wardrobe, reminding me of what could have been but was not. And it also reminds me that inevitably and without knowing the reason why, the things you do not live hurt much more. The kisses you do not give. The ‘I love you’ that you do not say. The rejected embraces. The unfulfilled promises.

  This is a story of words. An inspiring game my psychologist Silvia suggested a while ago. Nine words, nine days. At the beginning it was complicated and it seemed a strange tactic to overcome the sadness caused by falling out of love. Then, it became an addiction. And finally, time made me open my eyes. But it is still too soon to get ahead of ourselves. You will have to wait for the end of this story. A brief story of those that leave. A brief story of those of us who have to learn to live with the absence of those that decide to abandon us.

  “Sad stories always begin with a WE NEED TO TALK.”

  WORDS

  Diego left me in February, two days after Valentine’s Day. It was two days after having given me a bouquet of roses as he usually did, throughout our relationship, along with a heart-shaped box that contained succulent sweets. Ironic, right? Everything was perfect and Diego was the romantic man that every woman wanted in her life. I lived in a beautiful story and I was happy without foreseeing, at any moment, what would happen.

  Sadness invaded my life unexpectedly. For three months, I did not leave home. I hardly got out of bed. I barely ate. I turned things over in my head, not understanding what could have possibly happened. What had I done? Was I the reason a relationship that seemed idyllic had ended? It would seem so... it just seemed so.

  Times heals everything. That’s what they say. May came, the month for which I had planned my wedding with Diego. I decided to gather my courage and leave the house, to let myself be dazzled by the shy rays of sunshine of a stunning spring day, to let life flow, even though I still looked at it from a distance, timidly. I was hidden in the shadows of my disappointment and grief. I had no tears left, I had spilled them all. The hardest thing of all, on top of learning to live alone again, was having to call each and every one of the guests invited to our wedding to tell them it would no longer take place. They all said the same thing.

  “Poor thing...”

  I wanted to die. What I least needed was for people to pity me. I could do that well enough myself.

  “If you have words stronger

  than silence, speak.

  If you do not have them,

  then remain silent.”

  (Euripides)

  I looked for a way out, for something that would make me rise from my ashes. I was only thirty and had my whole life ahead of me. A life without him. But it was a life, after all.

  I called Sandra, one of my best friends. She was happy to hear my voice after so many months of voluntary silence. And it seemed strange to me to be talking to a person that was not myself. I had gotten used to solitude. Sandra spoke to me about Silvia, a psychologist that would most probably be the solution I needed at that time. Her methods were very different to other psychologists I knew, but they really worked and Sandra knew so from personal experience. I let myself follow my friend’s advice and got in contact with Silvia, and we arranged a first visit for the afternoon of the following day. Her office was located on the central Avenida Diagonal of Barcelona, which I could walk to from my apartment. The neighborhood of Gracia, my neighborhood, shone in spring. But my face did not express it like that. I couldn’t. I wan’t capable of seeing beauty anywhere. Beauty was hiding from me.

  Silvia made a good impression on me from the beginning. She was in her twenties, probably my age. She was enviably beautiful, tall and thin. Her short hair was a dark brown color, making her pronounced cheekbones stand out. She had a small, stub nose and piercing blue eyes. She looked serious, but nice. She inspired confidence. Contrary to what I had expected, I did not get to lounge on a comfortable couch. In Silvia’s office was a chair more typical of a grandfather than of a client in a psychologist’s office that needed to get things off her chest. Around me were bookshelves carrying a multitude of books. And next to the psychologist’s desk, there was a large picture window with views over noisy Avenida Diagonal.

  I had never been to see a psychologist before, so I didn’t know what to do. I felt out of place. On the other hand, I thought about the people that lived their daily lives with problems. Real problems. Serious health problems, the death of a loved one, eviction, not having enough money to feed their children, not having a place to sleep... And there was I... complaining and suffering because a man had left me. And because in three months, that man who had spent six years of his life with me had not been in contact.

  It was the first time in those months that I felt stupid and selfish. A spoilt, self-centered person with average problems. That’s what I wanted to let Silvia know.

  “What brings you here, Emma?” Silvia asked, jotting something down in a notebook.

  “Falling out of love...” I smiled sadly. “But I know there are more important problems in life. I don’t know, I imagine...”

  “Emma,” the psychologist interrupted. “You’re hurting, right?”

  “A lot.”

  “Well then that’s why you’re here. We know there are many problems in the world. Grave things happen to good people everyday. We feel bad, not knowing what to do about these external misfortunes, right?” I nodded obediently. “But what hurts you, what you are here for... is falling out of love. And that is also an important problem if it affects your life, your spirit and your state of mind.”

  She looked fixedly into my eyes, as if she wanted to guess my thoughts. She managed to intimidate me. Light-colored eyes have always intimidated me and although Silvia was nice, she had a stern gaze. I could even say that it was cold. Distant. Perhaps to not get too involved with her patients’ problems. It’s obvious that if a psychologist took each and every one of their patients’ state of mind and problems home, they would go crazy.

  “I’m going to suggest something,” she said. “Nine words. Nine days. Nine sessions. Over the course of those nine days, I want you to write at home. Write what each word that I give you inspires in you and what it has to do wit
h your relationship.”

  “What?” I asked, perplexed. I didn’t like the idea of having homework.

  “Get it off your chest. Words help, they are a source of inspiration and reading them out loud to someone that has nothing to do with your personal life helps too. You’ll tell me your story. How would you feel if we start with... melancholy?”

  “That’s how I feel...” I answered, head-down and with a sad smile.

  “I would imagine, Emma. But I have decided to start with this word,” she explained mysteriously. “Write. write your ex-partner, as if he were reading or listening to you. As if he were in front of you and you could tell him everything you feel. And when those nine days have passed, I promise you will go back to being to same person as you were before. You will be happy again.”

  Don’t make promises you can’t keep, I thought. But Silvia was very sure of her method, of its success. I had to believe... to trust in the words. To learn to get rid of the melancholy I felt in my soul. To learn to forget... or at least to remember without pain.... that would be enough. With that I would finally feel ready to LIVE again.

  “The bitterest tears

  shed over graves

  are for words left unsaid

  and deeds left undone.”

  (Harriet Beecher Stowe)

  MELANCHOLY

  Vague, deep, quiet and permanent sadness, born of physical or moral causes, which causes the sufferer to find no pleasure or entertainment in anything.

  And some day when you least expect it, MELANCHOLY will suddenly come to your life. I’ve been told that in this type of exercise, to cure my soul and free myself of the pain, I have to talk to you, Diego. It seems strange to talk to you through a white sheet of paper that I’m filling with these absurd words that you will never read. I’ve always been good at writing... at drawing too. There’s a reason why I chose a career in children’s illustration. It’s because I like it and it is a relief to be able to work from home. I don’t have to take my MELANCHOLY, sadness, disappointment, bitterness or whatever you want to call it, anywhere. In this way, I’m not contaminating anyone with my negativity.

  Let me tell you, that when you left, everything went dark. You closed the door, glancing at me and apparently you didn’t care what anyone thought of you. Look at you... you were cold and calculating. I have never seen you like that. I never thought that you were like that. That just shows me that you can never know everything about a person.

  You told me that you had fallen in love with another woman overnight and you threw our lovely, six-year relationship in the garbage. Wherever you are now... Are you happy? I hope so. Maybe it’s this melancholic state in which I’m in that makes me want silly things... but you can’t wish bad things on someone you loved, right? Even though they broke your heart. But on her I can... I wish she goes bald, crippled and deaf so that you have to speak really loudly for her to be able to hear you, so you get desperate and abandon her. I still hold the hope that someday, you’ll walk back through the door as if nothing had happened. You’ll ask for forgiveness, we’ll kiss passionately and we’ll make love like in the good old days and we’ll be together again. But I’m a realist. My feet are on the ground. And this MELANCHOLY that invades my space is telling me:

  “Forget him. He won’t come back. Don’t wait for him. He’s no longer yours and in fact... he never was.”

  Nothing belongs to us. Nothing lasts forever. But even so, we continue to be wrong and cling on to the idea that our partner is our other half. This idea is what is brings down completely and destroys our world when the person we think is our other half find what they think is really theirs. I was only a pastime. Real love exists in the arms of another. That’s how I feel.

  “Melancholy is only a memory

  that does not know itself.”

  (Gustave Flaubert)

  Diego, I’m going to tell you about the first time I met Mrs. MELANCHOLY. I’ve decided to cal her Mrs. because that’s how I imagine her. She’s a great big lady that goes to the hairdressers once a week, likes to give advice and thinks that she’s the best at everything. Mrs. MELANCHOLY blinds me, Diego. She won’t let me see the spring colors flooding the city of Barcelona. MELANCHOLY is making me bitter and is pressuring me. It hurts. It makes me feel sad... I don’t like feeling sad. In reality, Diego... I met Mrs. MELANCHOLY two days after you left. It wasn’t sudden, it came slowly.... silently, little by little.... she laid in bed with me and made me cry. I cried a lot, as if that would make me feel better, as if tears would relieve my pain. They didn’t. The only thing tears achieve is to make your eyes puffy and ugly. They make your nose runny. Tears are friends of Mrs. MELANCHOLY and in turn, this lady has tired me out. Yes, she has exhausted me. Just as you used to exhaust me, every time you were determined to go jogging through the narrow streets of Gracia at eight in the morning on a Sunday. She exhausted me, just as you did every time you made me go watch a football match. I hate football. She has exhausted me, just as you did every time you started a diet and you wouldn’t let me eat a delicious hamburger so that you would not fall into temptation. She has exhausted me, just as you did every time you told me you didn’t want to go to the beach because it was full of people and so we stayed home, bored, watching whatever bad film was on television. Come, Diego... Mrs. MELANCHOLY is making me see you a little worse than I remember. Maybe she’s not that bad... maybe Mrs. MELANCHOLY also has a good side.

  Is that what happens? When someone disappears from our life do we idolize them? Do we only remember the good things? The beautiful moments? MELANCHOLY doesn’t remember a single good moment. MELANCHOLY reminds me that even with you, I could also feel her. For example, on that day of November 9, you forgot my birthday. I turned twenty-six and you and I had been dating for two years, although we hadn’t yet taken the step of living together. You forgot my birthday. You left me alone and you went to dinner with your friends. When I mentioned it the next day, stuck between sadness and anger, you smiled cheekily. You said you were sorry. And although Mrs. MELANCHOLY took over me for a short while, I forgave you. Even though I will never understand it. The next day, you conquered me again with flowers... you felt guilty.

  Yes, with you there were times in which I felt melancholic. But it’s okay! You know why? Because when I got home after a meeting that went badly, you were there waiting for me. It’s okay, because when I saw you after an argument with my mother, you hugged me. And I felt good in your arms. Safe. Nothing bad could happen to me.

  I think these words on Mrs. MELANCHOLY are warning me of something. I can’t say goodbye to you yet, Diego. But I can say goodbye to this lady that is overwhelming me, tiring me and blinding me. I have to go back to seeing the good side of things. I have to abandon her like you abandoned me. Tell me, Diego... Was it hard? I suppose that abandoning someone you love is difficult. Abandoning someone you don’t love, that’s an easy job when you’re not considering the feelings of that other person. It has always been hard for me to break loose of anything... even if I didn’t care about it. I haven’t yet been able to throw away the cinema ticket of the first movie we went to see together. Do you remember which one it was? I do and a nervous laughter is taking over me when I think of the title... “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.” Perhaps one day you’ll become a ghost, Diego. A ghost of the past that I don’t remember with MELANCHOLY... only with gratitude for the good moments we lived. I only wish for that, truly.

  MELANCHOLY is returning... I don’t want her to. A tear is streaming down my cheek again. I get rid of it, as if it were easy... more and more appear... and finally, they fall on the paper on which I’m writing. And the letters... the words, they become blurred. These words are as much yours as they are mine. They are dedicated only to you and to everything I have felt. Because now I can see, it was I that loved you more. And although I don’t regret it, I’ve proven that the one that loves most is the one that looses. Or perhaps not? Perhaps that person simply feels more pain but doesn’t loose anything, on the contrary. The one that loves more has an even greater reward, you know what it is? They know the capacity their soul has for offering everything in return for nothing.