Out of focus

I know I should have never started to write this letter, yet here I am, at three in the morning, secretly hoping your wife will be the one to find it in the mailbox of the brand new apartment we should have shared.

The truth is I would have loved to spare everyone tonight’s ordeal, if only there was a simulator to prepare oneself for the moment of the definitive heartbreak. Just as astronauts get their training in zero gravity pools that replicate weightlessness in space, couples should subject themselves to simulations to learn to come to terms with the end of love.

However, armed with nothing but my inexperienced sensibility, I would have recognised you from any angle, sitting by the window of the french bistro with the linen shirt. Your eyes crinkled as you smiled at your wife (with the crooked nose and the high pitch voice, just as you told me) and your children: the spitting image of you that should have been ours.

Today.

Of all days I have left for work at twenty five minutes past seven, wearing two extra layers of makeup and the tight jeans you like so much, trying to increase the chances of a casual encounter at every corner... It had to be today, the same day I decided that it was time to begin to get over you, that fate has chosen to cross our paths. Even Mark asked me if I was feeling unwell as I nearly collapsed from memory infused stomach ache, mixed with the thrill of witnessing your smile again.

I met Mark on Tinder, poor guy: today was our first date. He bought me a rose, had showered himself in perfume and is freaking hot. You have nothing for him to envy. And, most importantly, he’s not married.

The waiter settled us on a table behind you, and I swallowed my dignity trying to justify why I had to sit on the chair where Mark had already left his jacket to be able to see you without raising suspicions.

The pinnacle of the night arrived when the sommelier decided that the best wine to accompany the romantic dinner was the same cocoa flavoured Merlot we got drunk with in your business trip to Tuscany. Putting the eccentric taste of the sommelier aside, ironically, a couple of glasses and the sparse dishes of this Michelin star restaurant helped me survive the copious kisses you were giving to your wife when we got to the desserts.

By then I had had enough of playing at being the spectator. Much to Mark’s amusement, I took off my jumper to flaunt my neckline and gathered all the confidence I had left to make an entrance. Halfway to your table I decided I would just pretend to go to the toilet instead and offer you a surprised smile on my way back. However, I ended up going right past your table with a dirty look specially designed for you. I made sure you recognised me by nearly tripping over the green Hugo Boss backpack you hid in my garden when you prepared a scavenger hunt for my birthday. Later I regretted not having stopped by to say hello and have your wife question you about that young woman from the restaurant when you got home.

After dinner Mark took me to his apartment, filled with the delicate scent of cheap deodorant and decorated with protein shakes at every corner, lit up a candle and offered me some whiskey. We had sex on top of the table (this virile, desperate sex common among the younger generation), and we fell asleep in the sofa, naked.

I woke up with a headache at around two. And then, to seek solace (and resorting to the justification that people use when they have started to get over someone but don’t want to fully admit it), I got dressed, took a taxi back home and started writing this letter.

Today I’ll fall asleep wearing your t-shirt, the one that I never washed and still smells of you. The waiter of the cafe from work will once more ask me why I come so early, if the office doesn’t open until nine.

And tomorrow, maybe, I'll text Mark with a photo of the rose in the flower vase: “I can hear it screaming for company. Will you bring some on Friday night?”