Original Story: The Unfinished Ballad of Lindsay

It never ceases to amaze me how capricious life is, and that is part of its charm. Literally nothing is written and everything is possible. I assure you that if you recount how you met the most important people in your life, you will see that it was in the most fortuitous ways, and that at that moment you did not imagine the impact that these people would have on your existence.

The only woman I loved until it hurt, and it hurt seriously, I met her like this, in the most fortuitous way you can imagine. And it is not that I have not loved someone else intensely in my life, but I loved her without barriers or restrictions in an almost suicidal way, in a way that now I see that it is not healthy to love someone, because it does not matter how much you love someone, you can't pass yourself off for it.

We studied together as children at an English school next to his house, but as far as I can remember we never had a meaningful talk back then. Many years later, already in college, on one of those days when everything, absolutely everything goes wrong, she reappeared out of nowhere in my life.

I was sleeping after having failed an exam that I studied for whole nights, and when I woke up my mother told me “Lindsey came to see you”, to which I replied “who ?!”, “Lindsey, the girl with eyes green and curly hair with whom you studied English, do you remember? ”, she replied.

At that moment I remembered her, she had already grown up and she was a beautiful young woman, I had greeted her once in a while as I passed her house, three blocks from mine. It turns out it was her birthday party and when she counted her guests she realized that the majority were women, so in an attempt to balance the situation she invited all the boys she remembered, including me, with whom she hadn't spoken since we were starting high school. Obviously I found out about this after her, one day chatting with her.

That day I thought “what the hell, what else can I lose by going to a party invited by someone I barely remember and where I don't know anyone? I can't be worse than I am now”, so I went, and that changed my life.

Lindsey was a blonde with half slanted green eyes, as if she had some Japanese ancestry, narrow waist, curly hair, with a smile that emitted a special shine, and a voice that was my downfall. She was really beautiful, a family girl, old-fashioned, it turns out that she had recently broken up with her boyfriend and the party was a way of taking her life back, I also found out about this much later.

During the party, she spent most of the time with me, since I didn't know anyone, and I don't know, maybe she saw that at that moment I was just as lost as she was because of everything I had experienced in recent days. The chemistry that occurred that day was always our blessing and our curse, we could almost kill each other one day, but when we saw each other again days, weeks, or months later, the same thing happened that first day, that first night, we simply couldn't be separate.

We started dating and never stopped for several years, I wanted everything with her, and she had no problem with that, but she could not leave her past behind, she could not love me the way I loved her, every time I wanted to move a little more she stopped. I gave her time, all the time in the world, we tried everything we could think of, but things just didn't work out.

We stopped seeing each other several times, and when we met again, the chemistry, that blessed-damn chemistry, united us in a new attempt to, now, to make things work, but we never did. After years the day came when we had to move on and acknowledge our defeat.

The truth is I don't know for whom that farewell was more difficult. For me who loved her with all my soul, or for her who wanted to love me with all her soul, who knew she had a future with me, that I would make her happy, but she just couldn't, and didn't understand why she wasn't capable of loving me the same way.

That night was hard. I will never forget our last hug. We practically threw ourselves at each other, and as if we were magnets we couldn't separate, we knew it was our last hug. I remember that due to the suddenness of the hug she could not surround me with both arms, and one of them was trapped between us, so I tried to separate myself a little so that she could hug me better, but she would not let me, she hugged me stronger with the other arm.

I don't know how many minutes we stayed like this, me sobbing, she crying like I had never heard her cry. She kept asking me for forgiveness, telling me that she didn't know what was wrong with her. I've never heard someone cry like that again, and I hope I never will. It was a mixture of pain, frustration, and a huge sadness that came out of every pore of her body. I had at least done everything I could, I knew I loved her. She was left with the doubt, the uncertainty of whether she was doing the right thing, if she would not regret after letting me go, but the situation was already untenable, and despite the fact that her eyes asked me not to leave, and that my whole being asked me to stay, I knew it was time to continue my life ... now without her.

A few days ago I saw her in a supermarket after years of knowing about her only through mutual acquaintances. She was carrying her son of about two years old, a boy with a light brown complexion who inherited the curls and smile of her mother. We chatted for only a couple of minutes and at the end, when we said goodbye to her, I saw that look in her again. If she hadn't been holding her son, I think I wouldn't have been able to avoid hugging her, and telling her that everything was fine, that she didn't hold a grudge against him and that I would always remember her as the first love of my life.

I was going to tell her that I wished her well when I saw a man approaching, I knew from the way he looked at us that it was her husband. I gave him a discreet smile and turned around, I was not interested in shaking the hand of who was occupying the place that I wanted for so long. But to be honest, it was because I didn't want to check if the sadness in her eyes was for me, for letting me go, that would have been too much ... there are wounds that should not be reopened, books that once written should not have an epilogue, and this is, much to my regret, and perhaps hers, one of them.

Thank you very much for reading this post and dedicating a moment of your time. Until next time and remember to leave a comment.