Baltimore by Jelena Lengold Page B

again. And yet, I’ll feel bad about it when I get home. I even put mascara on, intentionally, to prevent myself from crying. But it looks like it’s not going to stop me.
    “So, what message was he sending through his actions? What was he letting you know by doing all these things with you?”
    The message was: “I love you,” that’s what he was letting me know.
    “Well… the message was probably: ‘I have all the time in the world for you, I enjoy your company.’”
    “We could also say the message was: ‘You matter.’ Right?”
    “I guess….”
    And here go the tears again. An outrageous amount of tears. She says:
    “Let it all out. Don’t keep anything back.”
    And I let it out, but only to a degree. She sits silently for a while, and then she asks me when my grandfather died and where I was when it happened.
    “I was twenty-five at the time, and I was by his side when he died. It was a solemn experience and it was a good thing I was with him at the time.”
    I told her everything, wiping my tears the whole time. I also told her I didn’t cry at all, not then, nor later at my grandfather’s funeral. The tears came later. I told her how I let go of my grandfather’s hand when I realized the end had come, so as not to disturb him in his passing. And how I looked up, thinking his soul was already somewhere on the ceiling, looking at me from above, suddenly confused and frightened, not knowing what was happening to it. And how in my mind I tried to comfort and calm the soul on the ceiling by whispering to it that it’s all right, and that now it will slowly go into the light.
    “So, you can accept other people’s weaknesses. You know how to conduct yourself with people, even during their most difficult moments. Why can’t you accept your own weakness? Why does it make you angry?”
    I’m silent. I have no more strength left to answer her questions.
    “What would your grandfather say about your occasional display of weakness?”
    “He would probably say I inherited it from all those Russians and that it’s something I should be proud of. That would be so like him….”
    “But still…?”
    “But still, whenever we talk like this, I can’t help but observe the two of us from the outside, from a different perspective, and to me, all this seems so dreadfully pitiful and pathetic. It’s like there’s always someone else sitting here, in this other chair, mocking everything I say.”
    “And what is this other person sitting here saying?”
    “They’re saying I’m pathetic. And immature.”
    “What would this critic’s message be?”
    “The message would be: ‘Grow up already, it’s high time!’”
    “If I asked you what star you were born under, what would your answer be?”
    “I wasn’t born under any star. I was born under the Moon.”
    “And what is the Moon like?”
    “Melancholic.”
    Her eyes were telling me: “There you go. There is no cure for you. It’s just the way you were born.”
    And then, who knows why, she brought up the question of trust. Do I trust her? I told her I entered into this with honest intentions and that, sometimes, I might be playing a kind of game, in which case I’m not purposely deceiving only her, I’m also deceiving myself.
    “Do you think I have any doubts concerning your honesty?” she asked.
    “No, not at all,” I said, and I truly meant it. “I think you know I’m being completely honest.”
    And then, out of the blue, she felt the need to state her conclusion. I liked her specifically because she didn’t make any big conclusions, and now, suddenly… just like that, she told me to think about whether I opened up to her in my own pace. Could it be that I opened up too much and too quickly? Is this something I usually do? Do I establish trust that quickly in other situations as well?
    No, no, no, I wanted to scream at her, don’t do this to me, you yourself asked me if I trusted you, and now this is turning into a nightmare. Why are