to want | fiction

short fiction

*this story was written ten years ago, at another time of life when everything and nothing made sense

Give love softly.

To Gabriel she felt as strong as a storm that arrives with a name, as musical as lapping waves against a pier, loyal like a Latin mother to a Latin son. She moved him with thought and presence and good sense; the way others are moved by tragedy or defining moments in an otherwise ordinary life: a marriage, a birth, your football team finally winning what they were unable to win before. Each time she acted he felt her energy. Wherever Lucia was water flowed. And Gabriel followed her current like a blindfolded lover, let go of a stable life that felt unstable, flew over oceans, ignored emotional discrepancies, familial advice, just to hold her in his arms once more.

He was guided to Buenos Aires by vocal sounds that showcased her love for people unable to function as was more common to others, but melancholy blues did not cloud the work she did. Troubled souls had always turned Lucia on. She coveted the vulnerable, felt what they felt, moved with them unconditionally: a tango dance, a boxing match, it didn’t matter. When with patients life made more sense to her than when under constructs of social order. She belonged in their space, went to her clinic each day with the commitment of one who refuses not to see colour when surrounded by shade.

In Gabriel, Lucia as psychologist, trained and instinctual, unearthed in him a belief in humanity that had been stricken from his mind. For years childhood trappings repressed a desire to be with another. Emotional over logical, guardian actions had shown him sharper edges of love.

They met by chance at an all night jazz bar in Western Europe: horns from New Orleans, shots of tequila, limited space that brought them near. A suspicious brother had made introductions, distracted a temporary boyfriend so they could talk before hurried goodbyes. An email exchange, flushed cheeks, embarrassed smiles. It began before they realized.

Gabriel was a child to love, she wasn’t. Over time cyber exchanges between the two, a distance they valued for the understanding it offered, allowed him to be true to how he felt. They spoke for hours, often until unconscious.

Weekly conversation became daily conversation. Routines they had known previously were shared and adapted for each other. She liked to play football and dance to Bossa Nova, visit friends and on weekend’s her childhood home. He liked to write and read and take long walks through empty fields, spend time with people who asked few questions. The bad habits: drinking, chain smoking, self alienation, drugs, stopped when he met her. Gabriel joined a gym, ate and slept well, smiled at passing strangers. Lucia returned home from Europe and continued to live as she had before: fully, considerate to need, approachable without caution.