We grew closer through messages and glances, with the help of a translation app that sometimes got the most important things completely wrong. I would write, wait, and read every reply twice. Our words travelled between different languages, sometimes through improvised English, sometimes through translations that made us laugh. Between us were amusing mistakes and words neither of us could pronounce quite right.
At first, the language barrier felt like a game. We stumbled over words, laughed, showed each other phrases on our phones, and tried to repeat them. I discovered that a glance could finish a sentence that a translation had ruined. Whenever I didn’t understand something, I would hold out my phone. That familiar presence would move a little closer, read the screen, raise an eyebrow, and try again.
I don’t know exactly when I began looking for excuses to be near that person. Maybe it happened while I watched those familiar footsteps moving between the tables. Maybe when I noticed the hands I had started recognising. Or perhaps when I caught that same attentive gaze resting on me again, making me forget that we were surrounded by people. I didn’t need to invent a story about destiny. What was happening was already enough.
Someone working at the hotel had asked for my Instagram, and I found myself smiling every time a familiar name appeared on my phone.
I loved that nothing had been planned. That everything was unfolding naturally, during a holiday I would have to leave far too soon.
One afternoon, I realised I was no longer waiting only for the next message. I was waiting to see that person. To hear words I couldn’t fully understand. To figure out from a facial expression whether something was meant as a joke. And, more than anything, to stay just a little longer.
It’s strange how missing someone can begin before you’ve even said goodbye. We were still in the same place, and already I was afraid of the distance.
That question — “When are you leaving?” — had changed something. The date that once seemed like the natural end of a holiday was beginning to feel like a threat. I kept telling myself not to exaggerate. We had only just met. We came from different places, lived different lives, and had an ocean of practical problems between us. My mind kept doing the calculations. My heart refused to listen.
Sometimes, we would simply look at each other without saying a word.
It wasn’t the uncomfortable silence of two strangers. It was the kind of silence in which something was happening. I tried to read that familiar face, and I had the feeling that the same was happening in return. As though we were both searching for words that didn’t exist in either language.
Later, I would wonder whether those glances had held a promise. I know now that I cannot answer that question for someone else. I cannot say what those moments meant on the other side. But I know exactly what they meant to me.
I felt seen.
Curious.
Alive.
And for a few brief days, unbelievably happy.
To be continued…
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