Forgetting Paris: Meet Ada & Mateo

I fell in love with these two characters, Ada and Mateo, as I started writing this story two years ago. I may have been quiet from posting publicly, but I haven't stopped writing. I will never stop writing until my last breath on this earth. 

Forgetting Paris, is a story about staggered love - two friends' messy journey through adulthood. Join me and dive into this beautiful story that I will slowly unfold. Cheers.

Present Day: Ada

 

 

I had sworn off smoking a year ago. My ex-boyfriend used to smoke, and I found myself slipping into the habit more and more throughout what I liked to call my spiraling out of control breakup. Even after all this time had passed, I still frequently found myself walking past a small crowd of smokers - outside a restaurant, inside an airport in the designated smoking area, in front of a hotel - I would catch myself looking for a glimpse of him. None of my other friends or other exes smoked. Not one. Only my Nick had. My wild, selfish, art loving, sex addicted, broke, Nick. Looking back on it now with my counselor Becky, my relationship with Nick I realize was completely destructive chaos. It was a time I can only describe as wild, adventurous even, but filled with so much sex. I know that is one of the underlying reasons I stayed with him as long as I did. He made my soul feel alive when we were alone in my apartment together. It allowed me to easily forgive him for all of the stuff in between he was lousy at. Like everything outside of the apartment.

---

I was slowly walking down some street with my back away from Michigan Avenue, in clothing entirely too cold for the 10-degree weather outside - thin black tights, patent heels that were dirty and scuffed in places if you looked closely, a long black peacoat with a short and tight blue dress underneath.

 

It was 11:34PM on December 31 when I exited the bar, having no desire to ring in the new year with anyone at the Pops Champagne party I had paid entirely too much to attend. Instead, I chose the absurd alternative to walk outside in the freezing cold than brave another moment inside with loud music, drunk men in collared shirts putting their hand too low on my back and asking my name, and bubbling champagne spilling on my blue dress from elbows bumping into me. In my early 20’s, I would have been there until the place closed at 2AM, flirting with new prospects, or closing down the place on a Saturday night with a new boyfriend on my elbow to show off. How much had changed in just a few years between that New Year’s Eve and this one?

 

As I walked, I noticed now Erie Street from the green sign overhead, I realized it wasn’t that my world had changed much in the past few years. I had almost the same friend circle, went out on dates with similar types of guys and lived in the same apartment on Division Street. It must have been my perspective that was changing. I was turning 30 in just a few months, and frequently found myself thinking about that very turning point. Maybe, the smallest piece of me that had started thinking about this new decade ahead had caused me to walk out before midnight on New Year’s Eve, leaving my friends behind, hoping to slowly make my way - home? Where was it I was walking?

 

I saw the dancing bright red lights for a CVS pharmacy a block to my right and turned to head that way. If I wasn’t going to drink more, I figured how harmful can smoking be just for this one night? I noticed the usual blinding fluorescent lights through the windows on the street ahead and realized I didn’t want to go into a place that bright at this hour. Illuminating every imperfection on my face. No, there was a small bodega just one block past this street I knew of, that surely had to have what I needed. I kept walking, feeling now sharp numbness on my practically bare legs from the cold windchill sweeping through the windy city.

 

As I pushed open the glass door, a small bell rang. Without even looking at the name of the shop, I let out a huge sigh of relief to be back in the warmth. I heard a deep voice of male clerk with a frown say, ‘hello’ as I slowly walked past the counter, eyeing that they had exactly what I needed in the old dusty glass case the register sat on. I needed more time to defrost so I walked around the bodega pretending to look for something. I found myself reading some of the food and packaging labels just to kill time until my toes were no longer numb.

 

I clutched my lighter in my hand and fumbled to cut through the plastic on the package after finally paying and walked back outside feeling the cold air hit me like a wall and almost take my breath away. I removed one, put the rest of the package in my coat pocket, and clicked the lighter a few times before I got it to light my cigarette as I quickly inhaled it to my lips, returning my gloves back on my fingers. All I could think about was Nick at that moment and how I was the biggest hypocrite - always telling him, even yelling sometimes when I had too much to drink, that smoking was going to kill him and how awful it was for his lungs and how dumb smoking made him look. I laughed out loud to myself just then at the irony of it, as I did one of the very things that drove me the most nuts about him. He always promised to quit but I guess just never got around to trying hard enough. He broke so many promises.

 

I slowly started walking towards the closest L train stop knowing a cab was going to be impossible at this hour on New Year’s Eve, when I noticed a man and woman walking towards me. I avoided eye contact with them - I cursed the idea of anyone I knew seeing me inhaling something I found so grotesque. The couple was immediately next to me when I heard my name spoken so clearly above the wind, in a voice I could have recognized anywhere in the world.

 

‘Ada?’ I heard his voice ask again, ‘Is that you?’

 

I was too stunned to have the wits to put out my cigarette before stopping and turning towards him. But he didn’t look at the cigarette in my hand first and make a face. He looked directly at me and had that same sweet handsome smile on his face. He was as beautiful as the first time I met him as a teenager even though so much time had passed since then. I immediately threw the cigarette to the right of me, hoping it would land close to the small frozen snowbank.

 

‘Oh my gosh, Mateo, it’s you,’ I spoke smiling at him before noticing an attractive woman had her arm locked around his. I pushed aside the fear I had felt brewing inside me almost a year ago, when we had last seen each other.

 

‘It’s good to see you, what are you up to this evening?’ he asked before he saw the attractive woman on his arm look at him.

 

‘Oh, I’m sorry, Ada, this is Gretchen, Gretchen this is Ada,’

 

‘Nice to meet you,’ I said politely, extending my hand as both of us shook our black leather gloved hands together.

 

‘Ah - you’re the infamous, Ada’ Gretchen said, and I immediately looked at Mateo, wanting to read his eyes and understand the extent of what she knew about me. His eyes were locked on mine and I was lost on how to read them. Years ago, I knew that had meant, you are so beautiful standing there, I can’t stop staring at you. That clearly was not what he was thinking now.

 

Instead, I chose to say carefully, ‘Yeah, we’re old friends that go way back,’ figuring that could cover a lot of bases and not catch Mateo in any sort of lies without going into the full truth.

 

Gretchen reached into her jacket and looked at her phone, ‘Shoot, we are so late,’

 

‘Oh yeah, we are late for um - um meeting Gretchen’s parents,’ Mateo said, shifting from side to side. I still couldn’t believe I had run into him this evening.

 

‘Oh, well I don’t mean to keep you from your plans,’ I spoke as I looked at Mateo again and felt myself relax and absorb his sweet presence. The last time I had stared into those eyes was inside a hotel room in Paris. I wanted nothing more than to give him a hug in that moment, hold onto him in this freezing street, and whisper, ‘I’m so sorry I fucked up’ in his ear.

 

‘Can’t wait to tell them the news’ I heard Gretchen say, not fully listening to her speak and instead focusing on how beautifully perfect she was – perfect light blue eyes, the bridge of her nose was the perfect shape, and her long blond hair looked effortlessly smooth.

 

‘News?’ I asked only somewhat curious, still staring at the almost too perfect face staring back at me.

 

‘We just got engaged tonight!’ she let out almost a squeak as I saw Gretchen carefully take off her left black leather glove and extend her perfectly manicured and long pale fingers my way.

 

‘Matt proposed at dinner this evening, isn’t it beautiful?’ she said staring intently down at the diamond on her ring finger, seemingly still entranced by the new accessory.

 

I couldn’t speak or put thoughts together in my head. It was a modest but beautiful oval diamond stone on a gold band staring back at me. Haunting me. Teasing me.

 

I wasn’t sure how long I stood there staring at the ring, until I finally mustered the words, ‘Oh congratulations.’ I somehow found the phrase I needed to say, but didn’t believe it, even as I spoke the words, avoiding Mateo’s face.

 

‘Thank you, we are so incredibly happy,’ I heard Gretchen speaking again. Even her teeth were perfectly straight and white. I immediately had the urge to smack the smile off the face of this women.

 

It was finally then I said something I truly meant, ‘You are lucky to have found such an incredible man.’ I leaned over and gave Gretchen a somewhat awkward hug, realizing this was probably the polite thing to do, even if we had just met moments earlier. I then turned to hug Mateo. Maybe it was the combination of the champagne from earlier and the buzzing I felt from the cigarette I had just thrown away minutes before - I turned and slowly kissed him on the cheek. Looking back on it now, I realize a wildly inappropriate thing this is to do in our American culture when someone just tells you they are engaged to another woman, and you have a complicated past together. But I think I thought it might be my last chance to ever kiss him, so I took the risk.

 

‘Congratulations to you both,’ I said pulling away from Mateo and catching his dark eyes and tan face looking back at me. Confusion and love I saw staring back at me. I won’t ever forget how to read his face.

 

‘It was so good to see you,’ I heard Mateo say followed by Gretchen saying, ‘It was so nice to meet you.’

 

We started walking apart from each other and I overheard Gretchen try to say under her breath, ‘She will not be invited to the wedding, for the record,’ as I turned to look behind me.

 

With his hands in his pockets walking slightly behind Gretchen, Mateo turned at that same moment I was looking back and smiled my way. I don’t know why, even after everything we had been through, but I read that as a peace offering extended my way. Or was it something else?