Black Death And White Roses (1) Mafia Romance

3. Of this, that, and disdain

Roxana

Texts, calls, emails; I mostly wish I could throw my phone out the window. Nothing good can come from it at the time being.

Same as last night when the past came knocking through that damn device. Nothing good can come from that either.

When I saw Bogdan's text I could barely believe my eyes. Mercury must be retrograde or something because we haven't heard from each other for three years.

Bogdan and I have, of course, history. Lots of it. We were together during the whole four years of university. It was love at first sight and the relationship was extremely beautiful, at first. I felt loved and happy as never before... or after, to be honest.

Bogdan was born into a well-off family. Even if not super-rich they were way better off than my parents. Nothing wrong with that in itself. In the beginning, he seemed to not care about my rather humble origins. He found it cute that I had never traveled to fancy destinations, or that I was not taught how to ski, and that I was always so enthused and grateful for every small present that he was making me. I actually was, but it was never about the present, it was about his love and attention. 

We planned to get married after graduating, open our own company, and work together. He would do the design and I would do the engineering work. Bogdan is an architect. I have a thing for architects it seems. Silly me, because they seem to never have a real thing for me. 

After my mom died I was very depressed for a while. A while? I think I have been depressed ever since but I don't like to show it. There still are good things in my life left. I like to joke around with the people at work, I love my family, even if kind of broken, and seeing Christian makes me feel happy even if he will not notice me ever. Still, a part of me died that day with Mom, and another one withered slowly away every time Dad got drunk and I had to take over his responsibilities. 

Bogdan said one day, I think a year and a half after Mom's death, that he didn't recognize the girl he fell in love with anymore. I just stared into his eyes and knew deep down she was gone to never return. 

Many things about me had changed; the way I acted and related to the world had changed. I didn't go dancing with him anymore as we used to, I didn't take care of myself appearance-wise as I always did, I wasn't bubbly and funny anymore and I was rarely in the mood to have sex. We used to do so many fun things together. Ballroom dancing was our favorite hobby; it was magic. 

I used to be one of those super polished girls who always paid attention to wearing pretty clothes and perfect make-up. What a difference to who I am now. He always said, his favorite thing about me, are my little, perfectly polished fingernails. Now they are cut short and I didn't paint them in years. My hair was not cut in years either and I don't remember when I put make-up on the last time. What for? The guys on site don't care how I look, and that is great. 

I stare again at the message.

//Hey, cum eşti? Nu am mai vorbit de mult. Am auzit ca trăieşti in Elveţia acum./ Hey, how are you? We didn't talk in quite some time. I have heard you live in Switzerland now.//

Only that, nothing deeper, but it still managed to stir me up. It brought back memories of happier days, of who I used to be.  

That day, after our graduation ceremony, Bogdan got really angry with me because I left for Moldova without attending the party. He broke up with me over text. A damn short text after four years of relationship, saying that I had changed and that he didn't love me anymore, so he wanted to spend some time apart. 

That stupid text came while I was riding with my dad in the ambulance so I didn't have time to care at that point. I called him the next day, after Ivan's visit, which I still try actively not to remember in too much detail. I was crying and hoping he would say he changed his mind, that he had been just angry, that he loved me and didn't want to leave me. How wrong I was. He was still angry, screaming and questioning why it took me so long to call, and blaming me for not caring about him.