Chapter 16: An April's delusion.

For months, he had stayed by my bed. I had gone through a dozen fortnights of pain —at all times he had been there, gifting me care, caresses. Meanwhile, I just coughed blood and suffered from an intense pain only dissipated in morphine and similar compounds. We had had a life of sacrifices meant for each other. A valuable life.

Since we had met in a dreamy cold night of an expedited April in a hostel in the town of Galway, everything between Paul and I had been remitting back to the incredible connection that shone on us. It was a mysterious one: the uniqueness of the connection wasn't trivially explainable just by looking at the characteristics of both humans. We went out in the streets, we talked, and we drank. We took care of a drunk. He slept in the upper bunk to mine. My upstairs neighbor. That first night I felt that the metallic grid that supported his mattress was my jail. Hearing him sleep, I touched the bottom of the mattress, wanting to go up and hug him, wanting to break free from the jail that was restraining a relationship meant to set off. A relationship for the ages.

And we broke free —bringing a future of hope to us. How, I can't tell. My memory had a red grainy spot that blinds me from further details. I guess that we had a disposition that attracted one another —allowing us to overcome distance and difficulties. One thing is sure —the first night had been the only time in which I felt I could lose him.

Somebody like him could give a meaning to life: not in the sense of a goal for the future, but just the fact that he'd make a present worth all the pain and pointlessness from that past. And he'd soften the pain and pointlessness from the future.

Fulfillment, an inspiration to live beyond some preservation instinct. Being sure that the score of life would become a net positive, thanks to him. And the other way around: helping his life to become a net positive.

At times, I had been unsure of the connection being symmetrical: I couldn't but to be honest with him, whereas I couldn't be sure if he embodied truth. I surrendered, certainty was replaced by trust. For better or worse, I kept being an open book.

I feared, but yet another dreamy night had transported me back to his arms. The only person I had ever found easy to stare at the eyes of. Comforting. I followed him to the end of the world —and so did he, reciprocally. With time it became obvious that not everything was perfect. He wasn't perfect, nor was I. Perfection isn't real. Some distance was helpful, at times.

The essence of our romance, though, was perfect. And we never took each other for granted.

In my last breath, I declared the ever-present love we shared once again. He didn't like male nurses much, yet essentially had become one over my lengthy illness. My sweet nurse.

It had been a life worth living: he —by virtue of adding value to it— had made my life much more worth it. We together walked the earth. Flown into the skies. Swam the deepest of the seas. We then settled somewhere between Christchurch and Dunedin. A bit closer to Christchurch, though. Just take the 1 south from Christchurch and exit after Temuka.

I hadn't wanted to be alone since I met him. We kept delaying marriage, then I became his dying bride. Maybe I died alone, yet he still accompanied me to the gate. Maybe we had given ourselves children —who became the most important thing in our lives. Maybe we hadn't. But

I had had a perfect companion for the whole trip —an angel.

Next, I took another sip of coffee from Insomnia and looked at my phone. I wanted to cry. I felt so alone. Maybe I only was meant to have just one dreamy night.

“Paul is in the cliffs with some other gal.” —yet again, I had been misled by a rapidly forged illusion, a chimeric sense of a connection. For once, of a romantic kind. Maybe I couldn't really read people. Maybe I should have repressed all those dreams.

The immaturity of my infatuation was preposterous.

So were my needs and dependency.

I had caught a glimpse of perfection, though: the perfect proportions of shyness, compassion, genuinity, handsomeness.