One day, when we were going home, I mustered all the courage to sit beside her. She glanced my way. She saw me. She actually noticed me. Or at least saw me. Not every one does. But she did and smiled and let out a little chuckle.
We sat together for the next three stations. When it was her stop, I followed her off the train. I made sure I was cautious and quiet enough for her not to notice me. I followed her home to her studio apartment. I couldn't get in her apartment, I would not dare to. But I wanted to know her. I climbed up the fire escape and looked through her window.
I watched her do her business, watched her eat and get ready for bed, memorizing her routine. I watched her strip to her skin and slip between her sheets and fade to sleep. I watched her breath and smile at whatever it was she dreamed about. This went on for weeks. Every night I would watch her through the window and leave before dawn.
One night, as she slept in the night, she awoke in sudden. She looked around her as if searching. I feared she might have felt me watching her. I froze, thinking that my slightest movement would give me away. She shook her head with a chuckle and glanced out the window. When she stood up, I almost leaped off the fire escape. But she did not walk towards the window, instead, she sat by her bedside table and started writing. After a few moments, she went back to bed.
That morning, I waited for her to leave. I could not leave without satisfying my curiosity on what she wrote. After she left, I slipped in through the window and read what was written on the notepad.
“I do not know where you are.
Nor do I know who.
But I can feel you watching.
My name is Cherry.”
I read it over and over, not quite believing it. I picked up a pen and wrote her back:
“I'm sorry, I could not help it. I saw you on the train.
I was awed by your beauty and your sweet smile.
I just had to see you.
Anyways, my name is Michael. I hope you don't mind
me watching and admiring you this way.”
I then slipped out and went to school. Late as it was, I found her doing what she regularly does. And looking damn more beautiful at it.
By the end of the day, we again shared the same train. I sat far from her this time. Some of observing and some of fear that if she saw me she might shy away. So, I followed her home again, keeping my distance and being more cautious. When we got to the apartment building she took the main entrance and I took the fire escape.
Again I watched her do her routine. From making her dinner to giving herself a scrubbing with a washcloth. I watched her slip naked between her sheets, and before turning off her bedside lamp, she takes the note pad and reads my reply. My heart melt as she smiled and scribbled in her reply.
We began to have conversations on that notepad. Her, inside, and me, watching from the outside. I started to stop going to school, sometimes writing on that notepad, verses for her, telling her stories about myself and how I admired her. I ended up hanging around her apartment building, waiting for her to come home.
I told her that I watched her though the window but am too scared to meet her up front, that maybe she would not like how I look like. She wrote back:
“I have seen you.
Once on the train.
With your hair messed up and your brown leather jacket.
Which is a great statement by the way, with all the
writings all over it.
And you looked great...=)”
All feelings leaped inside me when I read that. I actually felt accepted. I started to do her chores for her when she left for school, that every night when she got home, her dinner was ready. I still stayed outside the window when she came home. And I wrote her more sonnets, poems and verses of what I felt about her. She found it a good choice to not pull me in from through the window, she said it felt like an angel watching over her.
Our conversations ran on and on on that notepad. Talking about her day and everything that went on under the sun while she was gone. A love affair on a notepad.
One night, six months after I stopped going to school, she came home late. She didn't even touch her dinner. She went straight to bed, she didn't even bother to scrub herself or read the notepad.
I mustered all the courage I had in me and went inside. I went to her side. I could smell her. She was dead drunk. So I thought she wouldn't mind. I took a washcloth and a basin and stripped her naked. I gave her a scrubbing and tucked her in between her sheets. I cleaned up her table putting everything in the fridge and gave her a goodnight kiss. She must have felt it through all the liqueur because she asked me to stay beside her. I did.
I left before dawn to take a walk and think. I was in love. When I got back to her apartment, she was gone. I looked at the notepad and there she wrote:
“Thank you, Michael, my angel.
Thanks for last night and the beautiful poem.”
So, I went back doing her chores for her, having a great feeling of being appreciated. I made her dinner after finding that she might have eaten last night's dinner for breakfast.
By the time she came home I was already outside the window, watching. She went straight to the window and for the first time, invited me in. We talked as she ate her dinner. We talked through the night. She invited me to take a warm bath with her, which later, she insisted. We took the bath, I, in silence, stroking her body and memorizing her every curve, absorbing her moans of pleasure.
We made love that night. She fell asleep in my arms, feeling her rhythmic breathing, stroking her light, jet-black hair.
She woke up as I was heating coffee, right before dawn. She said she didn't want to go to school that day. When I asked if she was feeling ill, she replied that she wanted to stay with me all day and that she felt rejuvenated.
We sat on that bed all day, enjoying every moment.
That night, we made love again and this time she didn't fall asleep. We talked the rest of the night, and she wanted to use the notepad again but this time our replies would be quicker. It went like this:
“I am Cherry Ann Reyes.
Eighteen. My mother is a pathologist.
And my father was/is a welder.”
“Why 'was/is?'”
“He fell from a building he was working on.
He didn't die.
He's in a comma.
And he likes to write poems and sonnets just like you.”
“I'm sorry to hear that.”
“It's okay.
What about you?
What's your story?”
“My name is Michael Rodriguez.
My mother works for city hall.
At least she was the last time I saw her.
And my dad was a police officer.
He died a couple of years ago.”
“I'm sorry.
Do you want to stop?”
“No, it's okay.
Never really spent that much time with me.
I mostly spent my time with my brother who
died a few weeks before dad did.”
“Again, I'm sorry.
Do you want to talk about it?”
“would you care to listen?”
"by all means."
“Well, he was riding a train.
The same train we share.
And he just collapsed and never woke up.
Doctors say it was a mystery.
'He was in the peak of his health' they said.
I couldn't believe it.
He was as strong as an ox.
And he just left me and I don't even know
why or how.
He just left.”
“You want to stop this?”
“Oh, no.
It's your turn.
Tell me something weird.”
“Okay.
My cousin died mysteriously too.
He was older than me and taught me to play guitar
every weekend.
One day he just told me that he couldn't teach me
because he was writing a masterpiece.
The next morning, his mom found him dead.
Is that weird enough?”
“Nope.
Not enough. Not even mysterious.”
“Okay.
My mom is a pathologist and she conducted the autopsy.
And zero. Nothing.
He was as fit as a gymnast.”
“Oh.
Okay. Just like my brother.”
“Now it's your turn.”
“I have one weird story.
But I don't think you would like it."
"Oh, come on."
“I would write it down but it's a long story
so you would have to wait.”
“Okay.”
“Two years ago, a kid in my neighborhood
shot himself in the head twice.”
“Twice?
But that's not valid.
It has to be something that happened to someone
close to you.
And that's not even long.”
“Okay. About me then.
I once felt a really weird chill up my spine.
Everything and everyone I knew was gone.
All I heard were voices and howls and growls.
I was running all over the city.
I found refuge in an abandoned apartment building two
blocks from here and I started writing on my jacket
what I thought was happening.”
“What was happening?
Were you sleep walking?”
“This happened the day that kid shot himself.
He was sixteen and he went to our school.”
“Did you know him?
What was his name?”
“ Michael S. Rodriguez.”
(phone call)
Doctor Rodriguez?
I hate to be the barer of grave news
but we found your daughter, Cherry Ann,
drowned in her bath tub.
From the state of the body, it seems that
she have died maybe two nights ago.
And the neighbors claim to have heard moaning
from her room on the same night.
Does your daughter have a boyfriend?
Doctor Rodriguez?
Doctor Rodriguez, are you there?
Doctor...
-Orville “chubby” Basas
