Next Door

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12.03.2004

A new diary, the first page.

I’ll write about them because I want them here, on the first page of this new chapter in life that I’m beginning. I want to write about something good because that’s the way every diary should start, and there’s nothing better than them.

I woke up early today and saw them. They said goodbye to each other just like they do every morning. She gently leaned towards him, and he kissed her on the cheek. Briefly, as if it were just routine. That peck will be lost in a sea of other kisses. It’s the same as the one he gave her the morning before and the morning before that, and the morning before that. And every morning, they get into their cars and drive off, while I curl up on the couch behind my window with a cup of coffee in my hand, thinking about the way she must smile contently all the way to work, with the thought of his lips brushing against her face. It’s how every good day should begin, and this is a good day.

17.03.2004

What a beautiful morning! I haven’t had a chance to write at all for the past few days, because my new job is keeping me busy, but I feel like talking today, so I might as well fill in the blanks since I don’t need to get to work for some time. Working those extra hours last week paid off and I can finally dedicate some time to myself.

I’m writing a brief summary of our friendship because I want to have it all in one place. It’s not as if I’ll forget, but I confess – I like writing about them.

I know I said I wouldn’t apologize for what I’m writing in my diary, but I can’t help it. Something inside keeps telling me that our love is dirty, but it’s not – it really isn’t. If I were to die tomorrow, this is the one thing I would want them to find, the story of our love is the one testament I would like to leave behind, and I just want to make things clear: I have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.

We’ve been neighbors for two years now, ever since they moved here, newly weds. They don’t know me well but we’re good neighbors, though we don’t interact often enough. They don’t seem to need anything except each other’s company. A friend of his comes over sometimes for poker nights in that cozy little parlor of theirs that overlooks my back yard. And some days, she’s accompanied by this tall, blonde woman, and as they carry their shopping bags into the house, absorbed in conversation or laughter, they make me wish I was there, to gossip and joke along. Other than that, they seem content just being with one another, satisfied with the other’s presence, needing nothing more. {quotes align=right}They seem to live in this perfect harmony, and become that nauseatingly happy couple you get bashed over the head with in some cheesy ad.{quotes} Or the ones your hear about – your parents’ friends’ son in law’s sister and her husband that you never meet but grow to hate, because you know their picture perfect life can’t be real, and that it’s all just society’s flawed perception of how things should be, and not necessarily what they are.

Except they’re not nauseating – they’re perfect – and they’re my best friends. I love them. I can say it easily now, although at first I couldn’t even bring myself to think it, but I do, I love them. Without knowing it, they make my day, every day. Whenever my boss yells at me, whenever a car splashes by me on a rainy day, whenever I’m just having a bad day; I look out the window and into their happy home and I get this warm feeling inside; the feeling that everything’s just going to be alright, that I belong somewhere. In their perfect life. I am jealous when their friends intrude because they are best when they are alone, together, sharing what they don’t share with anyone else. That’s the best thing about them: that they belong to no one but each other, and that the kisses they share and the words they speak are just theirs. I’ve never had that with anyone else before.

18.03.2004

Today’s pretty cloudy and I think it’ll probably start raining soon. By the time I get to work, despite carrying an umbrella, watching out for puddles, wearing a hat or wrapping myself in some sort of waterproof plastic bubble, my hair will still turn into a tangled mess and I will spend most of the day in damp clothes, sneezing my nose off, but it makes no difference. Tomorrow is her birthday and I can’t wait!
I know they’ll say goodbye to each other in the way that is only theirs, and that afterwards, he’ll pretend to go to work only to return home an hour later, laden with grocery bags, ready to prepare a surprise for her. He has done it for the past two years and  I’m hoping he will do it again.

Maybe, just maybe he will forget to pick up something he needs from the grocery store, and cross the little alley that separates our porches, knock on my door and ask to borrow something. And in that moment, I will enter their life, become a direct part of their universe and something I picked up from a supermarket shelf and threw carelessly in a basket, will make its way happily into their lives. That would be the best birthday present. Yes, I know it’s not my birthday, but I’ll celebrate with them and toast for our happiness and be with them just like they are with me, always.

There’s one thing I don’t feel happy about. I sometimes like to pretend I’m her, that I have that fantastic golden hair, those blue eyes. I hate myself for that, but every once in a while, briefly, I like to think I’m the one he kisses on the cheek so intimately. {quotes}You never think a kiss on the cheek could be so intimate until you see them. That morning kiss looks like the first kiss ever to take place between two people, from the beginning of time.{quotes} As if all the people that have kissed before were just faking it. As if they have discovered the secret of saying “I love you” through a simple brush of the lips on the other’s cheek. Sometimes I want to be her so much!

19.03.2004

I’m wearing my blue sweater today. She has the exact same one, and it goes well with her eyes. I just couldn’t resist when I saw it, and I bought it without a second thought, though I know it doesn’t look as good on me as it does on her.

I feel good wearing it.

They left for work about an hour ago. I wonder if he’ll come back or if he has something else planned this time.

Thanks to Marianne, I have the day off. I’m sorry I lied to her about having to visit my sick aunt Myrna, but this is far more important.

Here he comes!!! I knew it! Just look at the size of those grocery bags! Just think of her face when she’ll get home to see him standing there all happy and conspiratorial. I’m going to go and cook as well, I want to prepare something special for the occasion.

24.03.2004

I don’t know where to begin. I’ve spent all these days thinking and thinking, and I have no idea what happened, where it all went and how he could throw everything out the window like that. I called in sick because I couldn’t leave my house to go to work, I couldn’t just walk by their house as if nothing had happened.

I swore I would never write in this diary again but maybe putting everything down on paper will help. Maybe it has a secret meaning that I haven’t understood yet. Maybe it’s all just a giant mistake and after tomorrow, we can pick up like nothing happened.

It was her birthday and he was preparing something. A surprise, most likely a cake. Something that needed cinnamon, otherwise why would he have asked for some?

He knocked on my door and I couldn’t believe my eyes when I opened it and saw him standing there. He was leaning against the door frame carelessly, and when he saw me he smiled and said: “Hello neighbor”, warmly.

I have no idea what I said, probably turning red and mumbling something stupid, but he didn’t notice, or at least, didn’t show it. I welcomed him in, and then he started telling me about how he was preparing a surprise for his wife’s birthday. I tried to act surprised and sent her my best wishes but I think no, I know I was horribly clumsy in everything. And then, out of nowhere he asks if he can borrow some cinnamon; that he had left the supermarket in a hurry, forgetting to pick some up. I don’t think I said anything, I just rushed to the kitchen, stumbling, and I brought back a pack of cinnamon, handing it to him with my hands still shaking with emotion. How wonderful it all was! How perfectly aligned the planets seemed to be that day!

And then, it happened.

“Thanks, neighbor”, he said and winked, and I just stood there, frozen, not knowing what to say next, grinning stupidly. And just like that, the spell broke. I didn’t even notice him leaning towards me. What could have possessed him to do it? He leaned, and kissed me on the cheek, ever so gently, just a brush of the lips, a kiss that was so painfully familiar and yet so strange to me. Then he turned around and left, not giving a second glance, not caring that through that gesture he had crushed everything.

That kiss I thought only belonged to them, belonged to everybody. He probably kissed the mail delivery girl when she brought him an urgent letter, or the nurse at his doctor’s office, his wife’s friend or any other petty, meaningless woman that happened to have some cinnamon in the house.

I am disgusted. Disgusted by them, by the idea of the love I thought we shared. I feel dirty for ever letting them in my life.

How can they be so ugly?