Earlier, I invited him myself to come over and watch me write this essay.
'I'm sure I will surprise you,' I said proudly, 'because I type with ten fingers.
- Simultaneously? he was surprised.
I nodded my head.
- I really need to see this.
-He admitted.
He took some of his work, then silently sat on my bed with his back against the wall. By this time, I could feel him watching me closely. We spent more and more time together, more and more we went to the cinema, but we hardly touched at all. Sometimes I just let my fingers brush his arm as I pushed back his chair in the university cafeteria, and shook my hand as he got off the bus. On other occasions, we rather accidentally touched our shoulders, staring at the starry sky. Nothing else. I had the impression that I could hear the blanket being pushed aside, but I was engrossed in editing the text. So when he stood over me, I perceived his proximity like an electric shock. He put his hands on my shoulders, ran them over my chest, leaned down and kissed my cheek. He quickly turned so that our lips were facing each other. Later, when we were under the blanket, but before anything else happened, Alan said:
- I will not hurt you .
"You won't hurt me," I said. - Try to be gentle and careful.
"That's not what I mean," he whispered. "If you decide to quit me, you'll find you've had enough of me, don't worry about anything."
Nothing could be more painful than what I had already lived; the future was to show him wrong.
As our acquaintance grew, and hence Alan's confidence in me grew, I learned more and more about his lost family, Richard and Laura, about his younger sister Veronica, whom he once loved and hated, depending on the situation. he bit his tongue.
- My mother's name is ... her name is Laura.
He was still struggling with that part of consciousness that had long since accepted the fact that all three were dead. He kept fueling the glow of the still smoldering fire of hope, as if blowing the fading wood of a fire abandoned by someone.
So he belonged to the Stiles family. Of course, he took it as a joke himself, considering that any extended family, at least on his father's side, simply did not exist. Richard Stiles had no siblings, his parents died when he was a young man, and he never mentioned any aunts or uncles. He also had no extended family, which prevented Richard from arguing with Laura over which family they should spend Christmas with this year. It only happened that he had to go on a business trip during the holidays.
"I have to do enough for you," he would say proudly. - To my whole family. There is no one besides me.
He also had no sentimental mementos. He did not keep family albums from earlier generations, did not brag about childhood photos, did not hide letters from ex-girlfriends that Laura would like to throw away right after the wedding.
When he was fifteen, hot coals poured out of the kitchen grate and his family's wooden house went up in smoke. The fire also consumed all family heirlooms. So Richard grew up to be a man of the present moment and not looking back.
Laura did not have a large family either, but she did have many souvenirs, most of all lots of photos - both arranged in albums and stuffed in shoe boxes - showing, apart from her parents, members of extended family and childhood friends.
Her father died of cancer when she was little, but her mother was still alive when she got married to Richard. Mother found the son-in-law to be cute, just a little too shy. He had managed to persuade Laura to go to a quiet wedding, so there was no official wedding, so he did not have to perform in front of her extended family.
Only her sister Lucy was not impressed. She spoke contemptuously about Richard's work, which made him home on average every other day, so Laura had to raise her children alone most of the time. Nevertheless, he honestly earned his living by the family and had sincere loving loving affection for his wife. Laura Stiles found a job in a supermarket.
She put goods on shelves, served customers at the checkout, sometimes even helping the pharmacist, but only with basic activities. She did not undergo specialized training, although she was well aware that she should sign up for a course, learn at least the basics of trading, but when leaving work, she immediately forgot about these plans, focusing on the matters of maintaining families. Her sister Lucy, who worked in a nearby factory, reacted in a similar way producing clothing.