I was talking with my ‘friend’.
I don’t know how to exactly call him.
We talk, sometimes.
About everything really.
Our contact started when I went to get a massage one day.
I went for a foot massage.
Nothing nude.
He only had seen my feet.
Really.
As I was laying face up and not really seeing anything of him.
I had the feeling of speaking freely.
I don’t really know how it started.
I mean, our conversation.
I can’t tell anymore if it was him or me, but we started.
Not like lovers do, but just we started.
He was rubbing my feet and I started not thinking about my ex.
He was rubbing my feet and I started laughing.
Sometimes in the middle of a conversation I would forget what I was saying.
It made me laugh.
That was exactly what I needed.
Just some break from all the heaviness.
To forget about the pain.
To not think and just laugh.
The heartbreak was heavy on my heart.
My brain had to endure a lot.
The focus on my feet sort of made me forget about it all.
The tears, the sorrow and everything that came along with it.
Now speaking about it, makes me realize how much it really did to me.
But there I went every couple of weeks, sometimes months, him rubbing my feet.
Me laughing.
Forgetting.
Clearing the air.
The conversations made me think.
It gave me insight and insights.
About things I sometimes couldn’t come up with.
A welcome intermezzo.
And then one day the feet rubbing stopped.
I didn’t even notice.
Maybe a sign my heartbreak was done?
I had laughed it all off and forgot about the hurt.
However the conversations I had with him stayed.
Sometimes random, never orchestrated, always when the time was right.
Not that I knew.
It was just a feeling.
‘You know when you know’, kind of thing.
So one day he came to me.
He said.
‘You know this girl’.
He never called her by her name.
‘She passed by the other day and I was having a coffee’.
‘She was walking with another man’.
‘I called and said ‘hi’.
Is what he said and then he continued his story.
‘She didn’t stop, but just turned her face and said ‘hi’ back’.
He had stopped talking.
Then he looked at me and said, ‘that’s not normal!’
He said it firmly and direct, almost a bit angry.
He was hurt for sure.
He didn’t give me the time to say anything about it and continued his monologue.
To be sure to make his point.
‘It would have been normal if she just had stopped and made a short conversation’.
He was quiet.
He had said what he wanted to say.
‘Well, it’s really normal that she just said ‘hi’ and walked on’, I said.
‘I mean, first of all, it has nothing to do with you, but she was walking with another man’, I continued.
‘It would have been really weird if she would have stopped and made a conversation with you’.
‘I mean, you are not together and there is nothing between you’.
‘That is what you made clear to her, the last time you had contact’.
I just stopped to see his reaction.
‘But above all’, I continued.
‘Out of respect for this other man, it’s actually very normal she just walked on’.
‘That’s a clear sign also for this other guy she is not ‘fooling around’ with other guys and that she is serious’.
‘This was really the only thing that she could have done’.
‘Also to only say ‘hi’ to you, out of respect that you know each other’.
‘Everything else would have been weird’.
‘It is really normal what she did’.
I ended my response.
He looked at me.
He wasn’t going to take a ‘no’ for an answer.
‘But it’s normal, that when you say ‘hi’, you stop and make a conversation’.
‘I mean, after she left I saw this other girl’.
He named her by her name.
He was still drinking coffee.
‘I said ‘hi’ and she stopped and made a conversation and then she passed again.
I said. ‘Yes, that’s normal, but with this girl you have no past, you also don’t have a future’.
‘I mean ‘love-wise’ you don’t have a future and you know each other in a friendly way’.
‘So it’s normal that she stopped and talked with you’.
‘You are right about that it’s normal that when you know someone on a normal level you stop and make a conversation’.
He was still mumbling a bit.
‘But it’s just normal that you stop and make a conversation’.
His eyes were facing the ground.
I could feel his sadness.
I kept quiet.
‘It’s just sad’, he said and paused for a few seconds.
‘It’s just sad’, he repeated.
His eyes still facing the ground.
He started to come to his senses.