Siempre
My
former boyfriend was a 19 year old graduate of the high school I assisted for English
and art classes at. He was beautiful; Tall, dark-skinned, brown eyed and strong
and gentle. His eyes had the most mischievous sparkle, and his smile was
dazzling. His hands were rough and big and kind. He took me on walks around the
vineyards surrounding campus, reading and explaining Spanish poetry in a Pablo
Neruda book I bought in the city. His thumbprint is still on one of the pages.
He apologized after realizing he’d left it there, but I didn’t mind at all; I
love that his mark remains in my belonging. I love how physical objects and
human beings are marked by the passing of time and the progression of life.
Scars are beautiful, I have one by my left eye from when I was four years old.
He, my boy, had a scar on the back of his hand from glass. He may or may not
have punched a window, he was secretive and never fully explained the story.
And I hate to admit that my Spanish was limited at the time. Still, he was a very
private person, and I don’t like pressing people to reveal their secrets.
This
boy’s name was beautiful, RARO in initials. Raro means strange, unique, rare.
He wrote his name and initials in my sketchbook. Later, the day before I left
Chile, the last day I ever saw him, he wrote me a letter I was not allowed to
read until I was on the plane. I read it late at night, over the ocean on my
twenty-third birthday. I cried. The sort of crying one does in dreams, pure
pure pure sadness and heartache and brokenness. No anger, no self pity, just
sadness and weeping, felt deeply in one’s heart and soul. Bitter loss. I have
experienced this kind of crying maybe three times in real life, but countless
in dreaming. Leaving him was so so hard. I didn’t want to.
Life has
moved on. He has moved on. He became distant from me. We never even phone or
video called after I left. He texted me less and less. He was planning on
visiting me, but maybe he realized how expensive a plane ticket between Chile
and the US is.
A
couple months ago one of the teachers from my school, one of my best friends
there, and a very close friend of his messaged me on FB asking if I knew what
had happened to him. I had no idea, something had happened? She told me he’d
had an accident. He had been shot.
I
messaged him on insta, the only place he seemed to regularly look. He was okay,
not in danger, but on bedrest and recovering. Three men knocked on his family’s
door late at night while he was visiting. Everyone had gone to bed already, at
a somewhat early hour. His father answered the door and yelled when he saw the
gun they pointed at him. René jumped out of bed and went to assist his father,
yelling and running at the men bravely, and stupidly. They shot him twice; he
didn’t feel the first time, but felt the second time and passed out. Thankfully
the men left without causing more trouble, scared off by René. He never told me
where he’d been shot or how bad. The boy is private, and I did have to ask him
to tell me the actual story of his injury, he didn’t volunteer it.
He
recovered pretty quickly, walking the week after his injury and biking not long
after that. We’ve lost touch again. I reach out to him and he doesn’t respond.
He stopped responding to me on whatsapp not long after we broke up. The idea
was to remain friends, but how do you remain friends if the other person won’t
even talk with you? The solution eludes me.
He said
he would love me forever. He said he loved me forever. Siempre. I was his
first. His first girlfriend. His first kiss, his first crush. His first dance.
Before me, he’d shown interest in no other girl. The teacher who told me he’d
had an accident was the same who took me aside and told me all of this, and
told me to be careful with him. Another teacher did this as well, I promised I
would be gentle, careful, true, fiel. I was. There was no falling out, there
were no harsh words, just a slow slide away from each other, me struggling
frantically a couple of times to climb back up closer to his heart.
In the
end, I hope his life is amazing, I hope he finds someone and builds a
beautiful, amazing life with them. I hope he has beautiful, strong, kind and
hardworking children who attend college and become educated and build a better
Chile; a safer and gentler Chile. I hope they take care of him and his love in
their old age. I hope he always rides his bike and climbs mountains and stays
in touch with his friends. I hope he achieves all of his dreams. I hope his
house is filled with books that his whole family respects. I hope he carries
his wife over their threshold and over streams and over rivers. I hope he holds
her hand in his manotas. I hope she holds his strong arm and rests her head on
his shoulder. I hope he takes her to secret places and plays her his favorite
songs on his phone. I hope she plays him hers. I hope he introduces her to his
favorite teachers. I hope her family accepts him as their own and loves and
cherishes them both. I hope his mother lives to a hundred healthily and has
great and great great grandchildren. I hope his little sister graduates high
school with honors and life long friends and opportunities to further her life.
I hope his older sister finds love and lives life to the fullest and loves her
family. I hope they mend their relationship. I hope his father loves and
appreciates and cherishes his wife and his children. I hope he treats them with
gentleness and understanding. I hope he, René treats his own children with love
and gentleness and understanding. I wish all the best for him now and forever. Siempre.
