The hallway floor still seemed like the safest place in the world. I mean, in my own private world, which consisted of the claustrophobic limits of this apartment and my own mind. The bread was still there, silent witnesses to my humiliation at the bakery. Marina's image – redhead, perfect, law school graduate – was burned into my retina, a glittering reminder of everything I wasn't. And mixed with that, the confusing image of Steven, the mysterious buff neighbor who knew my name and had belonged to her. The math simply didn't add up, and my head ached trying.
Eventually, the need to return to my natural habitat (the computer chair) overcame the inertia of despair. I scooped up the bread with the dignity of a possum rummaging through the trash and dumped it in the kitchen. I dragged myself to the bedroom, the only place where my inadequacy could breathe a little more easily (or at least suffocate in peace).
The cell phone. There it was, on the nightstand, dark and menacing. My desire was to ignore it for the rest of eternity. But… he had sent a message before. @StarryNight88. What did he want? Curiosity, that treacherous pest, began to itch beneath the layer of shame and paranoia. Who was he? Why talk to me?
Ping.
The screen lit up. My heart did a stupid jump. It was him. The temptation to throw the phone out the window was strong. But… I was alone. So absurdly alone at that moment, with the humiliation still fresh. Maybe… just maybe… an anonymous, meaningless conversation would be an escape? A distraction? What a pathetic thought, Beatriz.
I picked up the cell phone with the caution of someone disarming a bomb.
@StarryNight88: Hi. Sorry if I said anything weird on the street earlier. You seemed… I don't know, scared?
Scared was an understatement. I was in the process of molecular disintegration on the sidewalk. But did he notice? Did he care? Or was he just being… polite? Weird. My standard response would be silence. But the question of how he knew my name still burned. And maybe… just maybe… the part where he apologized had disarmed a thousandth of my defensive hostility.
With slightly trembling fingers, I typed, correcting the panic-induced typos about three times before sending.
Me: How… how do you know my name?
The answer was quick. Too quick?
@StarryNight88: Oh, that? I think I heard someone call you that in the hallway one day. I live in this building too.
My brain screamed LIE! No one calls me by my name in the hallway! It's always the doorman's "psst," or Leo shouting some insult, or my parents… Wait. Neighbor? He was admitting to being a neighbor? That was… more or less scary? My fingers hovered over the keyboard. I could confront the lie about the name. Or… let it slide and see where this went? Curiosity (and maybe the lack of anything better to do) won.
Me: Oh.
Me: Okay.
Brilliant responses, Beatriz. Nobel Prize level of online conversation.
He seemed to accept my monosyllabism. Maybe he was used to strange replies. Or maybe he was strange too.
@StarryNight88: So… um. Everything okay over there? After… today?
Was he asking if I was okay after the street or after… something else? The paranoia returned. Did he know about Marina? Impossible.
Me: Everything's fine. (Lie.)
Me: Why?
@StarryNight88: Nothing. Just… making conversation.
@StarryNight88: This heat makes me kind of nostalgic, I don't know.
Nostalgic? Nostalgic for what? For the time when people didn't melt inside hoodies in the middle of summer?
And then came the sentence that made my system crash.
@StarryNight88: Reminded me of those impossible summers back in school… the worst was having to endure PE class under that sun in the Santa Ana courtyard. Remember that?
Santa Ana.
The name hit me like a cold shockwave. My school. Santa Ana High School. How… how did he know? My blood ran cold. My breath caught in my throat.
The images came unbidden. Not just of the courtyard and PE classes. The memory delved deeper, to a specific time, a specific feeling. I was fifteen years old. Deep in high school. The height of my "let me die in peace in the dark corner" phase.
And him. Steven. His image in the library, thin, wearing glasses, absorbed in a book, appeared first. But it wasn't just the physical image. I remembered him being… kind. In a quiet, almost imperceptible way. I remember him helping the new girl from the other class find her room. I remember him picking up the books that a clumsy classmate dropped. Small things. He was thoughtful, even though he was almost invisible to the louder cliques.
And then, the most embarrassing memory of all, the one I had sealed in a rusty mental vault, burst open the door. Valentine's Day. Me, fifteen years old, feeling that strange and confusing thing that might have been a crush on Nerd Steven. That feeling that, behind the glasses and the shyness, there was something… beautiful. It wasn't just "cute" in a weird way.
He was genuinely attractive, a handsome boy, even if he wasn't the popular or loud type. He had that brown hair that fell over his forehead, eyes that seemed more expressive when he took off his glasses to clean them, a small and rare smile that appeared when he read something funny or helped someone.
I wasn't the only one who noticed, I think. I vaguely remember hearing some girls on the other side of the room whispering about him being "cute" or "nice," and maybe even "mysterious" for being so quiet. But he seemed completely oblivious to it, lost in his own world. And, of course, I thought I was garbage compared to him, even though he was the "nerd." His kindness, his quiet intelligence, his slightly lost air… all of that, to my teenage and needy self, was incredibly attractive.
Driven by a teenage impulse mixed with a massive dose of insecurity, I had… written a letter. An anonymous letter, of course. Full of cliché phrases that I had probably copied from some shoujo manga, talking about "admiring his kindness" and maybe something stupid like "your quiet smile brightens the library" (how embarrassing!).
And along with the letter, I had left a "gift." My God, the gift. It was a small action figure of a generic robot from an old mecha anime, a secondary character who didn't even have a proper name. And the worst part: the figure had a broken arm, which I had tried to glue back with super glue, leaving a horrible mark. Why did I think that was a good idea? It was the epitome of my weirdness and lack of resources.
I left the anonymous package in his locker before class started, my heart beating so hard I thought it would explode. I never signed it, obviously. The idea of him knowing that I, the weirdo freak, liked him – a boy who, even nerdy, was secretly considered handsome and kind by some people? It was unthinkable. Rejection would be certain and devastating.
But the day hadn't ended there. That same Valentine's Day, upon opening my own locker at the end of class, I found… another letter. No signature. The handwriting was neat, but nervous. The message was short: it asked me to meet him near that old magnolia tree behind the library after the last class.
Panic. Pure and absolute panic. Who could it be? A popular boy making fun of me? A cruel prank? It couldn't be real. No one in their right mind would send a letter to me. The fear of rejection, of public humiliation, was paralyzing. I didn't go. I never went to the magnolia tree. Instead, I ran home as if the devil were on my heels, locked myself in my room, and spent the afternoon watching romance anime, daydreaming about a Prince Charming (probably with colorful hair and a magic sword) who would one day find me, without all that scary real-world complication. Fear prevented me from even trying to find out who the mysterious author was.
Oh my God.
The revelation hit me now, in the present, with the force of a ton of bricks falling on my head. The letter I received… that same day… asking me to meet behind the library… And Nerd Steven was known for hiding in the library… Could it be…? NO. Impossible. Coincidence. It had to be. But the seed of doubt was planted, growing at an alarming rate in the fertile ground of my paranoia.
That Steven, the kind and secretly attractive nerd I thought was cute and to whom I gave a broken action figure, might have… tried to talk to me? And I ran away? And now, years later, he was my buff and mysterious neighbor sending DMs and mentioning school?
My mind went into total meltdown. Nerd Steven = Buff Neighbor = @StarryNight88 = Author of the Mysterious Letter (????) = Guy who received my Broken Robot?? And me? Grumpy Girl = Secret Admirer of the Cute Nerd = Person who Skipped the Meeting??
This was too much. It was a romantic comedy script written by a drunken and sadistic screenwriter.
I looked at the screen. His question was still there: "...Remember that?"
I remember. Oh, do I remember. I remember much more than I would like to now. And the confusion was so great that lying seemed like the only safe answer.
I typed slowly, my fingers cold.
Me: Santa Ana?
Me: That was… a long time ago.
It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the whole truth either. It was a shield.
He replied, and the answer seemed almost… understanding? Or just tired?
@StarryNight88: Yeah. A hell of a long time.
@StarryNight88: Small world, huh?
Small world? Or a personal labyrinth designed to torture me?
And then:
@StarryNight88: Well, gotta go.
@StarryNight88: Take care, neighbor.
Neighbor. Again. And he went offline.
I froze, the phone in my hand. The conversation had been short, but the floodgates of my memory had been blown open. Santa Ana. Nerd Steven, the kind and attractive one. My teenage crush. The letter. The broken robot.
I got up, stumbling. I went to the door, looked through the peephole. Empty hallway. His door, closed. But now, it looked like the door to a vault full of secrets, confusions, and broken robots from the past.
I went back to the chair. What was I supposed to do with all this information? This absurd possibility that the guy who scares me might be the same guy I secretly liked and who might have tried to reach out to me, which I refused out of fear? And that he wasn't even that "invisible."
My head was throbbing. Marina's humiliation seemed almost distant now, overshadowed by this new layer of historical-romantic-shameful chaos. I desperately needed something sweet.