Happenstance

thirteen

     From her purse she takes a really thick journal. It’s full of papers that stick out, of every colour and it takes me a few seconds to recognise them and process that those are the post-its I’ve sent her. She keeps them there, now with the letters and the pictures.

“Those are my post-its, aren’t they?” I question, just for confirmation.

“Ah, yeah. I keep them all here,” she shows me flipping through the pages showing me the many post-its I’ve sent her. I feel a tug in my heart at the sight and then I think of my wall with all the ones she’s sent me.

“I put yours on my wall. It’s very colourful, now,” I tell her and she looks at me surprised so I just smile. “By the way, is purple your favourite colour? ‘Cos most of the post-its are purple,” I comment and she blushes a bit.

“Yeah, it’s my favourite colour. I can’t really tell yours. You sent me post-its of every colour!” I chuckle this time

“I just bought post-its, I never cared about the colour. But mine is also purple. The headphones are mine,” I tell her pointing at the headphones she has around her neck.

“Oh right, then I should give them back to you. And the MP3 player,” she speaks out loud, taking the headphones off and then handing them to me. “I really loved the playlist! All the songs. Some of them I already loved but there were quite a few I didn’t know of which I completely loved.”

“I’m glad!” I express with relief. “I just picked some of my favourite songs and artists. Nothing in particular, just the first song that came to my mind. I would’ve added even more but I thought thirty was enough. Did you listen to them all?” I ask and I notice we are talking more comfortably now.

“Oh yeah! All of them. I had to stop when I noticed the play, but then continued from where I stopped until the last track.” She then hands me the MP3 player but I shake my head, pushing it back into her hands.

“You keep that,” I tell her and her eyes widen. “That’s an old MP3 player and I have the same playlist on my mobile, so keep it so you can also have it and listen to it again whenever you want.”

“Thank you,” Maca replies with her bright smile that makes my heart race. I don’t even notice how I don’t let go of her hand, still touching her fingers, until she pulls back to put the MP3 player in her purse and then focus on the journal again.

I see her collecting all the pictures carefully but my eyes are more interested in watching her fingers. They are slim and not that long, she has small hands but proportionate to her body. I also notice they tremble a tad bit and I wonder if she’s that nervous.

“You don’t need to be that nervous, Maca,” I surprise myself saying and she looks at me confused. “Your hands,” I point as the only evidence to backup my statement and she looks at them before understanding what I mean.

“Ah, that! No, my hands are always shaking. When I’m nervous it’s worse. I mean, I’m nervous but not that nervous. This is the normal thing,” she rambles and I tilt my head. “It’s kind of a side effect and just bad pulse. I’m kinda used to it already, or better said, I accepted it.”

I want to ask what does she mean by side effects. Is she under some treatment? But I think it’s too early to ask that kind of questions, although it’s one I’ll definitely have to voice later on.

“I always wanted to have a Polaroid,” she tells me, closing the journal once all the pictures are out. “It was really cool to take pictures today and have them immediately in paper.”

“When I take pictures with my mobile I never print them, that’s why I have a Polaroid. The one you have is mine,” I inform her as she organises the pictures by order in which they were taken.