Connection

   As we headed to the station, to take that small train that goes around every terminal, I decided to take his hand in mine. Normally I would never do that but I decided this was the best moment to do it. It was time not to mind anymore about who was watching or if they had things to say. All the hate in the world could fall on me but I didn’t care because I understood what he was going through. He needed much more than just my hand in his, but I was happy to feel he took and squeezed it a bit, as if telling me “Thanks, I needed this”.

 We hadn’t spoken in several hours and I decided I didn’t wanted to be the one to talk first. For me, it was a decision he had to make because it was him who needed this time to reflect and think about many things. Well, that was my guess anyway because I couldn’t be inside his head. I did wonder though, about his thoughts and his secrets. But all of that was his to have and not for me to know. I respect a person’s life, and a life always has secrets and things you rarely share with anyone.

 The train station was a bit crowded and, oddly enough, most other passengers were foreigners, just like us. We were in San Francisco international airport and in our train there wasn’t a single Californian. We sat down, put our bad in front of us and felt the pull of the train beneath us, moving slowly towards the next terminal. I noticed my eyes were closing a bit, rocked by the movement of the train. The flight had been very long and we still had another one to go. I had never travelled so far before and felt a bit guilty, as I hadn’t paid for one dime. It had been all him.

 He squeezed my hand again and I turned towards him. His eyes looked sad but they felt stronger than before. He looked at me as if wanting to tell me something but there was no need. I proceeded to lay my head on his shoulder and he did kind of the same. I closed my eyes but I couldn’t really sleep. I just felt closer to him now and didn’t want that moment to end. But the train, after two other stops, finally arrived to the terminal we needed to be in.

 When we stepped out, we walked slowly towards some escalators and eventually to a commercial area. We passed a coffee shop and I asked him if he wanted to grab a bite. He didn’t say anything, just nodded as he yawned from exhaustion. As we wouldn’t let go, he joined me in the queue. We bought two big sandwiches each with cappuccinos and a big muffin to share. After we paid we found a little table a bit separated from the rest of the people and sat there. Our baggage was there too, with the few things we had been able to bring for such a short trip. We started eating in silence, watching people go by.

 We let go for a few seconds, to take our coats off, but he grabbed my hand again as he ate his sandwich. He ate it a bit too fast, he was hungry and he hadn’t told me. I wanted to ask him why he hadn’t told me he was hungry if maybe his stomach hurt or something. I was growing very mad for a moment out of such a silly thing and even my hands began to sweat so he noticed I was going through something. He looked at me and I saw his watery eyes looking at me. I had never thought they were as beautiful as they were in that moment and I felt bad for that.

 I at my sandwich as he drank his cappuccino, drying his eyes with a thick napkin they had given us. I saw he wasn’t feeling good, I saw he was still broken and I hated him for not talking to me. I felt so far from him and I didn’t understood what I was doing there, why he had brought me there if he wasn’t going to tell me anything. I had had it with all the silences and considerations. I didn’t wanted to wonder anymore about what he was thinking or what he wanted to say.

 Suddenly, he stood up and left. When he was two steps away I thought I heard the word “bathroom”. He had used his voice once only to tell me such a stupid thing? I almost made my cappuccino cup make a flip in its own plate but luckily my fist landed in the right place. People looked at me anyway and I just covered my face and lowered it to finish my sandwich and the cappuccino. I took the muffin and took a bit chunk of it with my teeth. The sweetness of the chocolate helped my spirit feel a little bit better.

 When he came back, I noticed he had been crying but I didn’t say a word. I only gave him his half of the muffin but he didn’t grab it so I ate it. I wasn’t going to waste a good muffin just because he wouldn’t talk to me. We took the baggage and started walking around the terminal, trying to make time for the next flight. I checked our gate on a screen and he stood up behind me, not even looking at the screen but at the airplanes on the tarmac. I hate to see him do that because I felt I just couldn’t leave him, ever.

 We got to our gate and sat down by the counter in order to be ready when they called us for boarding, which would began in a matter of two hours. I wanted to fall asleep or at least feel I wanted to be asleep but that time had passed. Maybe it was the coffee or the fact we had eaten something, by I couldn’t fall asleep.

 Then I felt his hand grabbing mine and, of course, I didn’t push him away. Because I wanted to feel his hand and smell his scent and taste his lips. But I didn’t now when I should go for a kiss, a hug or a conversation. I felt lost and kind of in a disadvantage. After all, we had just arrived from his mother’s funeral.

 He squeezed my hand and also stroke it and I just had to look at him. But he wasn’t looking at me but, again, at the planes outside. I squeezed his fingers softly and he did look at me at then he came close and kissed me. His face felt a bit cold, his lips a bit dry, but I knew those were the kisses I had learned to love although covered in a veil of sadness I had to understand. He let go of my hand and put his hand on my face and just keep kissing me. We stopped after a few seconds, smiling.

 Our hands stayed together as people arrived. The plane was going to be full, that was certain. He kept looking to the planes and then he started watching his watch. He was clearly anxious to get back home or maybe worried he had to go back in a plane. He wasn’t that friendly with them. Finally, the boarding process began and some minutes later we were already inside the plane, sitting side my side with and old lady as our neighbor. She was the first person to speak to him and he responded.

 Hearing his voice was the best thing for me. I loved it so much it filled me with joy, tumbling down all the feelings that had gone through my body earlier.  I smile at the lady who told me I had a very charming husband. Of course, I didn’t correct her but my blushed cheeks should have been enough to tell anyone she wasn’t exactly right. As a matter of fact, we had been boyfriends for a bit more than a year. That’s why I felt so strange doing all of this, the trip and meeting the family and all that.

 I mean, I had met them earlier, his mom too. Bu that situation was like getting to know them all again, especially his father who was obviously different now. He interrupted my thoughts by whispering in my ear: “Would you like to?”

 He caught me completely unprepared. I started to sweat again, my heart racing as the plane separated from the terminal and made its way to the runway. He grabbed my hand and from his pocket took out a small box. I started coughing right there. He knew I did that when nervous because he just opened it to reveal a very simple but beautiful ring. He took it out from the box and took my hand. Now, he asked me in a normal voice, making some heads turn.

   - Would you marry me?

 I felt all of them watching me, even if there were maybe only three people paying attention. In my mind, I revisited the funeral and what had happened earlier and the day we met and how we shared our lives and then, I remembered him watching the planes. I remembered that feeling I had when saw him standing there, his back towards me, looking at the tarmac.

 I knew his body and his way of dealing with things. I knew how he ate, how he peed, how he showered, what his favorite curse word was and how high he could jump. I knew I like his hugs and his voice. He had said to me he liked my body and my eyes and my mind. I also knew there were things he didn’t know about me and I didn’t know about him. There were secrets and thought that were private. So many feelings.

   - Yes. Yes, I will.

Morning after

   He woke up hugging his pillow and naked. He had no memory of when and why he had removed all of his clothes but a glance to the floor next to the bed proved it was all there, all over the place. Unfortunately, there was also a smell that hit him hard and fast and which he was not preferred for. He was too tired and dizzy to get up from the bed and grab everything and put it in a bag. But he had too because the smell was too powerful and he couldn’t rest in peace with vomit all over the place. Because that’s what the smell was.

 He did what he had to do as fast as he could and went back to bed. He didn’t put on underwear or even a t-shirt to counter the cold morning. He simply covered himself with the thick bedspread and closed his eyes, ready to sleep for a couple more hours. But he couldn’t. He turned around in bed, tried hugging the pillow, tried sleeping on the side, on his back or his chest, but none of the positions worked. He just couldn’t fall asleep and he found frustrating because he did feel tired.

 Apparently when arriving that morning, he had had the time to pull down the blinds on his window and that’s why it the place look nice and dark but according to his alarm clock it was almost one in the afternoon. He had no idea at what time he had arrived but he knew he wasn’t going to sleep anymore. And that frustrated him. Anyway, he stayed there and just closed his eyes, listening to the sounds of the city.

 Suddenly, he heard the vibrating noise of his cellphone but the device was not on his night table. It wasn’t on the floor either and he hadn’t felt it in any of the clothes he had put on a bag to wash later. For a moment there, he thought he was imagining things and that the sound was only in his head. After all, he had a lot too drink and his body was still processing it all so maybe he was just hearing things that weren’t there. He closed his eyes, again, changed the position of his legs and tried to relax.

 But the sound came back. That humming sound felt near but it wasn’t in any of the obvious places, unless he had left it in the bathroom. But he didn’t remembered having been there after he arrived. So he stood up and went to the bathroom and didn’t find anything. Taking advantage of having stood up, he decided to pee and it was there when he realized where the cellphone was.

 When he finished in the bathroom he opened the door of his room, which was unusually closed, and found his boots lying there and his cellphone inside one of them. He couldn’t explain how he knew the device was there but the important thing was that he had found out and that he could happily return to his bed.

 There, he found out it had been a friend who had been calling, causing the cellphone to vibrate. She had called four times and had sent two messages asking if he was all right. He tried to remember if he knew why she was so worried but didn’t really know, although the most likely thing was that he had left the party without telling anyone and as drunk as he was she had been worried for him. He did kind of remember wandering around the streets, feeling the piercing cold of the morning and not even knowing exactly which bus he had to be taking to go back home. He finally got into one and probably fell asleep in it but woke up just a few blocks away from his usual stop.

 He decided to write a short message to his friend and let her know he was a bit confused and still dizzy but alive and well in his bed. She responded at once, telling him she had not been lucky enough to rest all day because she had a wedding to go and had to prepare for it. She was actually really late, even if the event was going to be place late that night. She told her friend to let her now the next time he decided to leave drunk from a party and he told her that if his brain worked that next time, she would get her warning.

 The man left his cellphone on the nightstand and just stayed there. He looked up to the ceiling but he was actually thinking about the party: he had been invited because the people that had organized it knew his friend but he had no real knowledge of anyone there. That’s why, from the moment he arrived to the moment he left, he started gulping down glass after glass of alcohol: wine, rum, vodka and so on. The cocktail he was making in his belly was more dangerous than any of the actual cocktails that were made for people in clubs and pubs.

 No one even looked at him all night, not to say “Hi” or to fake and interest and ask something. And to be honest, he happened to dislike most of the people more and more as the night went on and the alcohol dissolved in his body. They all seemed so pretentious, so full of shit to be honest, that he didn’t even want to be having a fake conversation with them, he though that would be even more excruciating that the embarrassment he felt when someone entered the bathroom when he was vomiting. But he never saw the face of the person, so he couldn’t care much.

 He left the party because, as always, he felt like the odd one out, like the different one even when he knew for a fact that he wasn’t different or special or anything like that. He didn’t have any tragedy in his life, he was suffering from anything like a disease or something and he was alive and well and living. He couldn’t really complain about anything but he left that party because he couldn’t take it anymore.

 It may have been the alcohol but he was sure that even sober he would have been bored even faster that he had been. Because he couldn’t try to join any of the conversations as people looked at him in bad way when he tried to enter one: he would just stand there and listen and try to elaborate some opinion on what they were talking about and then realize that some of the people looked at him as if he was something horrible standing there or, worse, as if he had no right to be there.

 He hated parties and going out and all that shit because of that, because every single time he did it he felt judged by one or many, he felt judged because he never had enough money to spend, he felt judged because he was in silence for long periods of time, he felt judged when he finally gave his opinion and people found it to be wrong somehow and it was very tiring. He realized that he gulped down alcohol when it was free and he could do it because it created a barrier that protected him from everyone being assholes and it kind of worked.

 But he knew he couldn’t do that always. He couldn’t just hide behind glasses and glasses of vodka because he wasn’t really that person, he wasn’t a drunkard because he loved alcohol, and he was one only when he felt the need to escape. And when he didn’t have any money he just left the places where he was because pressure proved to be too heavy sometimes. No one ever tried to stop him or anything but he did dream about that, he wanted someone some day to be finally interested by him, even if there was nothing to say.

 It was his belief that everyone wants that in life, everyone wants to feel interesting and wants someone to be there and be all amazed and dazzled by your life, even if there’s nothing that’s amazing or marvelous or interesting in it. He knew that he wanted that. Even more, he needed that person urgently but whoever he was, because it had to be a he, wasn’t here and with some many people in the world and his way of being and so on, he knew it would be different.

 He was clear too that he wouldn’t change his way of being, his personality, because that would be just compliance and trying to change to make others feel nice and he didn’t wanted to be one of those people. He wanted someone to be happy with the actual him and not with some clever invention that made everyone more comfortable. He actually pitied people that went through physical and personality changes just to please, he thought of them as pathetic little people that lacked the balls it needed to go through life, even when he also felt very weak most of the time.

 He decided to turn around, lay in his belly and just sleep a bit more. He finally felt he could close his eyes and go to a land that was only his and maybe there he would find that person he needed. Maybe they would hold hands and talk or just share a moment together. Then, when time would come to open his eyes, he would just promise to wait patiently until the day they would actually meet.

Family's end

   The bridge crossed the gorge in all its extension. The father stopped the car at one end and head out. He inhaled the fresh air and walked near the railing of the bridge. There was a big net like structure to prevent people from falling but the view was just outstanding. There was a small river below but mainly trees, a big green mat of big and small trees that covered the valley below. The mother joined him with two small kids, which seemed to have just woken up. They held their mother’s hands and were rubbing their eyes with their free hands.

 The family stood there for several minutes, without saying a word. Even the children were silent. Then, a burst of light and smoke appeared far away, clearly visible from the bridge. The father inhaled and exhaled without saying anything, only tightening his hand in his pocket. Then he went back to the car. Mother and children followed. The engine started and they crossed the bridge fast into the highway beyond. They travelled without making a single stop. None of them complained or said anything. They were a family but it really didn’t seem like they were. The kids kept to themselves, not even playing with one another and just looking through the window or looking straight, apparently distracted with the flying dust or the sounds of the car.

 Night arrived and the car finally stopped by a roadside hotel. They paid for one room with twin beds, one for the children and the other one for the adults. But none of them really slept. They seemed to be on alert, waiting for something to happen. Every time a car drove into the hotel parking lot and the lights lit their room, they moved, opening their eyes again and shaking softly.  That was during the night and during breakfast and a nearby diner things weren’t less strange. A perky waitress tried to cheer up the kids, given them pancakes with faces on it, but the kids seemed not impressed and even worried. After they left, she told everyone that would listen about the weird family that had come in early, with a lot of money.

 Because the waitress had seen the father’s wallet and the several bills inside it. He even gave her a big tip but all with that weird face, between worry and boredom. The family kept on travelling by road until they reached the border with another country. The father and mother acted then, hugging and smiling as the immigration agents checked their passports. The mother even bought the kids some chips and candy and the kids laughed and ran. They all behave like a normal family until the immigration officer let them pass. An hour later, the car was as silent as it had always been. The terrain they were crossing at that point was desert with only a few plants to see and even a couple of rocks every few kilometers.

 That night, they didn’t stop driving. The father didn’t seem to be tired at all, just going on and on, his legs moving normally and just looking ahead, with a strange look in his face. They finally reached a big city and parked inside a shopping mall. Going inside, they suddenly separated. Each kid, mother and father took different directions and explored the place. The father went to an electronics store and checked out several computers, TV’s and sound systems. In spite of the money he had, he only bought a tablet computer. The mother, meanwhile, was in a department store trying out clothes and shoes. She made the saleswoman bring her so many pairs of shoes but finally settled for one pair she had seen from the beginning. She also bought a flowery dress and went out of the store already wearing it. The little girl went playing to the arcade and his brother entered a pet store and sat down in front of the many aquariums and fish bowls in one end of the store.

 They reunited several hours later. None of them had eaten anything but when meeting they went straight to the car and restarted their journey which happened to be a short one. They paid a room for each in a hotel and stayed there for a week until the secret service and other agencies got to them. They were arrested and send back to the country they had fled. There, a hearing was held to read the crimes they were being charged for but none of them seemed to be interested in the matter. They accused them to plan a terrorist attack and bomb a power plant that served millions of people in a large region of the country. Days later, they were presented with a lawyer and the father only told him to ask him about his story in front of the jury and the media.

 He did exactly that some weeks later and the father started telling his story. According to him, they were all a family. He knew it didn’t seem like it but it was true. He told everyone his family had been living a quiet life in a ranch not far from the bridge they had crossed to escape. They were happy and didn’t harm everyone. True, with no other relatives nearby and believing in homeschooling, they hadn’t really made many acquaintances. One night, he claims, their home was raided by men claiming to be the military, saying they suspected the home was used as a laboratory to make drugs. They apparently arrested them and took them to a military facility were they were tortured. Not only the two adults, but also the children.

 The father stopped his story there and asked if his wife could tell the rest. The judge agreed and the woman stepped up to her seat, not even looking at her husband as he grabbed a seat with their lawyer. She told them they noticed the place was underground, as they never saw any sunlight when being kept down there. She looked at the judge and told him they began another round of tortures, much more medical and even scientific. She had no idea how to explain it but she assured that they had been probed and tested several times. It was then when they all began to feel detached, not a family anymore.

 The hearing was stopped them because of the time and rescheduled for a later date, the week next to that one. During that pose, something happened that made the media really pay attention to the case and stop saying they were all acting because their adoration of terrorism had made them insane. The children were held in a facility for abandoned youth. They were being watched at all times but it was too late when, one night, the cop that was in charge of them arrived in the room and realized the little boy, maybe seven years of age, had committed suicide. His sister was three beds away, asleep or so he thought. The boy had planned it all because he knew he wasn’t going to be normal ever again.

 When the trial resumed, the girl was put on the stand. She didn’t cry when asked about her brother’s death. Actually, she seemed no to feel anything. It was as if she was made of stone. She told the jury she had been with her parents when they decided to escape the facility they had been held in. Somehow, they were all faster, stronger and much more intelligent than when they were abducted from their home. Something had been done to them that had rendered them better but less of a family. They used these abilities to kill several people and escape. In a matter of minutes, they used the militaries weaponry to make a large bomb and they activated it with a remote control. The facility happened to be beneath a power plant and they had not known they had destroyed it too. They just wanted revenge.

 But as the days passed, they realized revenge served no one. Something else had been done to them, much worse than any of the tortures. Somehow, in their minds, they didn’t feel any love or care for any of their relatives. It was, they described it, as looking at someone they had never seen in their life but no one else was there to help them so they united. It didn't mattered who they were as long as they weren't doing mean things to them. They felt there was something, but not enough to make them a family again. The father stated they had stayed in that hotel for a wheel in order for the police and others to finally catch them. Escaping was not their plan all along.

 People were divided on their opinions about the case. The owners of the power plant demanded justice to be done for the deaths of several of its workers and the military were rumored to release a statement soon. But none of those things were necessary not mattered. One morning, all remaining suspects, about to be convicted for the death penalty, were dead. The father had cut his throat with a cutter he stole from one of the guards. The mother took several pills she grabbed from the purse of a woman in the court room and the girl drowned herself in a tub.

 No one ever knew anything about them. Where they had come from or what had really happened to them, nor where they had gotten all the money the police had found with them in the hotel.But it wasn’t important. They had been killed by guilt, by pain, because they realized their lives would never be the same without their family united.

Work on a Saturday

   As fast as I could, I grabbed a pair of socks and put them on fast. The guy kept ringing and ringing, as if it was possible I hadn’t heard the doorbell the last one hundred times or that I had just fallen asleep after speaking with the doorman about letting him in. Some people were just very rude and I had no idea this guy could be this rude. Finally, I went to the door and opened.

 He barely looked at me as he entered my place, sat on the sofa in front of the TV and, for no apparent reason, grabbed the remote and turned it on. Confused for a few seconds, I decided to stand in front of him and ask what he was doing here. It was then that I noticed he had brought a backpack with him, which he had dropped on the floor.

 The man, whose name was Alex, told me our boss had asked him to fix the work we had done back at the office. As the work had been done by the both of us, and only I had some of the information, he decided it was a better idea to come all the way to my home and finish the work together. In any case, he didn’t seem that interested to have any work done as he kept changing channels and moved on the sofa to find the best spot possible. As the natural nice person that I am, I decided to offer him what little I had in the kitchen (orange juice and wafers).

 But I put the plate on my dining table, a small round surface from which he could watch TV but also pay attention to whatever it was that I had to do. After great insistence and with food as my ally, Alex finally got up from the sofa only to sit down heavily on one of the dining table’s chairs. He grabbed his backpack, took out his laptop from there and asked me the password of my Wi-Fi network.

 To be honest I was going to tell him we could do it all from my computer, as I thought the internet might prove to be another distraction but then he told me he needed to send me the email with all the details about the information we had to change and some other things that we had to add. Finally I gave up and gave him the password. To my surprise, he was fast to send me the email and in fifteen minutes we were already in full work mode.

 The work we had to do was long and it would take time to get all the information necessary to finish it thoroughly. As we advanced, I realized I seemed more distracted than he was at the start of the session. I mean, I was entering all the wrong numbers; even my grammar seemed to be getting worse by the minute. And the truth is that I was distracted. After all, it was Saturday evening and I had planned to stay at home, order takeout and watch at least three movies on a row. Working with that guy wasn’t on my mind.

  Alex and I had never really bonded at the office. To be honest, we had only spoken to each other about work related subjects and for an hour straight, at most. Now he was in my house, eating all my wafers, not speaking to me and it had been more than an hour from his arrival. If he was going to stay any more time, I needed to be able to be myself in my house. After all, he had not called prior to his arrival or warned me in any possible way. What if I had been out with my friends or something?

 Well that wasn’t really possible as all of them were busy with their own stuff but, hey, it was a possibility, however remote it may seem. So I decided to try and chat with him but that seemed pointless. I asked him if he lived far but he only said he had taken the bus. No idea what that was supposed to mean. Then I asked him about people in the office and he answered me by asking a nine-digit number that I had in my laptop. No, he seemed inclined to get the job done fast.

 I hadn’t thought of it but Alex might have had plans or something and now he was stuck in my place working. So it was logical that he would prefer the job done than answering my silly questions every few seconds. So I decided to shut up and just offer him some more juice. No more wafers. Now that I realized, it was almost eight o’clock and my belly had begun to complain. What if I ordered a pizza, as I had planned? True, I hadn’t planned on sharing it with anyone but at least that way I could have part of the night I had envisioned earlier.

-      -  Hey, would you like some pizza?

 Those were like magic words as he turned, raised his arms to stretch his body and smiled. It was the first time, in almost two years of watching him in the office, that I thought he was rather good-looking. I mean, some of my friends at work had told me he was “hot” or had “a nice piece of ass or even that he looked like, at least, three celebrities. But I had not realized about any of that until that night in my place.

-       - Sure. I’m starving. What would you like on it?

 I’m sure I looked like an idiot right then because it took me a long time to understand what he had just said. Seconds felt like hours and when I spoke, it didn’t make any sense at all. I tried again, and this time I had perfectly said:

-       - What about veggies and meat lovers? That’s my regular…

-       - Awesome. Love it. Nice choice.

He only said that but I blushed as if he had just told me something much more intimate. I shook off the feeling as I grabbed the phone and made the order to the pizza place I usually called on weekends. Not that I ever dated but it had been quite a long time since that and when I got out with friends it was frequently on Fridays. For some reason, I didn’t like to go out on a Saturday, unless the day called for it, so only for very good reasons.

 I sat down in front of my laptop and started entering some more data, numbers, statistics and so on. I didn’t even try to talk for the next half an hour or so. I only stared at my screen and answered Alex’s questions as fast as I could, without even looking at him. I felt him staring from time to time but I suddenly felt very self-conscious and I really didn’t want to talk to anyone.

That thought was soon interrupted, when the delivery guy made his appearance. Apparently there had been some kind of malfunction in a machine at the pizza place, so they were handing out these bread sticks made out of pizza dough before they went bad. I paid for my pizza, took the food and thanked the nice man. As I turned, I realized Alex had taken my computed and his and put them, with everything else that had been on the table, on the kitchen counter.

  I put down the two boxes on the table and he eagerly began to talk, as he opened both boxes and grabbed a napkin. Suddenly, for whatever reason, I smiled and decided to go along. After all, we had been working for hours and we needed some time to relax. I asked him about what he had planned to do today before knowing we had to work. Alex, who appeared to enjoy pizza very much, told me he might have gone out with some friends and drink beer or maybe just watch a movie at home.

 I told him that had been my plan: pizza and movies. Then he smiled and said something I thought I had heard wrong:

-       - Cool. We could do that after we’re done.

I didn’t answer right away but apparently he was too busy dipping the “pizza sticks” on a special sauce so no problem there. Again, he smiled and looked so much more noticeable to me than ever before.

-       - Why hadn’t we ever really talked?

To my surprise, it was him that had made the question, even if I had been thinking about it for that few minutes. Weirdly enough, I didn’t have the answer or at least not one that made any sense at all. I had no idea why I had never tried to bond with him, even if I had in fact done it with virtually anyone else on our office. It wasn’t like I was friends with everyone but I had tried to be nice to everyone and let them know they could count on me for all work-related stuff. So why did I never approached him?

-       - Do you hate or something?

-      - No. – I said with confidence. – It’s not that.

-       - Then what?

 He has stopped eating and was staring at me, almost without blinking. I didn’t have the answer to his question but, deep down, I knew why I hadn’t spoke to him at all. Maybe it was just because I liked him and I had shut down that possibility from day one. So I told him that out loud and asked him if he wanted more orange juice. He nodded so I went to the kitchen for more.

 We finished work two hours later and, at last moment, I asked him if we would stay for a movie. He said yes.