What do you think is worse: hatred or indifference? Knowing that a person can’t stand you to death or doesn’t care about you at all? Knowing a person has at least some feelings towards you or none at all? Knowing he or she thinks about you - even with anger - or doesn’t even know that you exist?

She was waiting… in her lovely blue silk dress with white flowers and silver high heels, in the restaurant next to her apartment on High Street. She was waiting… looking at her small - even childish - watch and trying to keep her emotions down. She was waiting.. and thoughts wouldn't leave her. What if he didn’t want to come in the first place? What if he found someone else to spend time with? What if he is stuck at work? What if he forgot? She flattened the hem of her dress, touched her hair, hoping that she didn’t waste time on curls for nothing. She was waiting…

All of a sudden she closed her eyes.

It felt safer not being able to see the world around you, like the world stopped and you had time to breathe. Like life doesn’t have any meaning, and you don't need to think… Like…

She couldn’t take it anymore and opened her ashy-purple eyes wide as if she were holding her breath underwater— nothing.

People around her were still talking and laughing and having a good time with people who care about them, like them, love them. Odors of honey-smoked chicken, risotto milanese and pumpkin pie filled her lungs. She remembered…

Remembered the feeling of his lips on her neck, a sense of her hand in his hair right after a shower, the touch of his breath on her cheek…

Her heart started pounding faster, a broken breath wouldn’t let her calm down. She was torn to pieces of confusion, love, apprehension, warmth, emptiness and fullness.

She was waiting… Tried to order something for herself, but was taken aback and just sat silently, looking at the vase with dark pink roses on the table. She was waiting… and worrying if she did something wrong and that he would never come back, if she said something that surprised or shocked him so much that he changed his mind, if he didn’t have feelings for her anymore. She was waiting… and her mind was like a chemical formula ready for an explosion. She was nervous, happy, devastated, angry, sad, hopeful.

Suddenly she smelled a lemon soap behind her, felt a soft kiss on her right cheek, sensed warm hands on her shoulders. In a second, the explosion stopped, her heart was calm as if she was sleeping, her fingers weren’t shivering anymore. A huge smile covered her face. She wasn’t waiting anymore...

She turned.