The Man of My Dreams

After a month of treaties with my dad, he has finally agreed to let me go for a New Year’s holiday with my neighbor’s son and daughter up in the mountain. Now, you have to know that my dad never allows me to go out anywhere and this is a huge deal. I am so excited that I couldn’t even sleep that night.

The big day has arrived and we are all in the train on our way to the mountains. Here, we meet with some university colleagues of my neighbor’s son, around nine of them, all of whom are couples. The only singles are my neighbor’s daughter and I. I don’t know why but for some reason I feel left out. I feel nobody wants me there.

I kind of overlook the situation and we start to hike all the way up to the cabins where we were housed. It was a long hard walk because we were climbing through the snow with our luggage. I stop from time to time as I am physically not strong enough to carry my bag and to climb the mountain.

A man, not from our group, stops and helps me out. I am shy, but I cannot stop myself from noticing that he is a handsome man. He wears hat and is tall, well dressed, with a strong manly voice. When our eyes meet, it is like the entire universe has stopped for a few seconds. I didn’t know what it is, but I feel a pleasant feeling running all over my body. Is it his voice, his charm or the way he is carrying himself that is attracting me so much?

We finally get to the top of the mountain and I am so glad! I finally get to rest my painful body. When I enter the room, I see everyone allocating where to sleep and how and with whom. There is smoke, alcohol and food everywhere.

I knew we were supposed to share the room, but I didn’t know that all twelve of us were sharing a room with two beds. The room is fairly small with a small window and a stove in the right corner, right next to the entrance door. Nobody is bothered to allocate a place for me to sleep and when they realize I am in the room, they look a bit irritated.

I walk out of the room and stay in the hallway for a long while. I wish I had never come and stayed with my family. I didn’t fit in this picture. While I am standing there in the cold, one of the guys from the other group approaches me and asks me if everything is okay.  He smells nice; I am thinking to myself, he is not so tall or well dressed. All the people of this other group notice me, but I am unwanted in my own group. I wish I could cry and nobody sees me. I timidly say I am okay and the guy leaves, telling me if I need anything, I should feel free and ask them.

I go back to my room, after a few hours, and they are all sleeping. What am I doing there, I ask myself? I try opening the door but I cannot because there are people sleeping on the floor blocking the entry. I squeeze in a corner, in a sort of seating position and try to sleep, but the smell of alcohol and smoke mixed with the smell of food is not allowing me to rest. I get up in pain, with an enormous regret and disgust.

I decide to overcome the situation, look at the beautiful day outside and go wash my face in the big sharing bathroom. He is there, it is him! The guy who helped me with my luggage! My heart begins to beat faster. He looks at me smiling and wishes me good morning. I almost faint hearing his voice. I try to pretend I have everything under control but I actually didn’t.

We all go out to play in the snow with the sleigh. Here I see him again. I don’t know how, but of course my group leaves me all alone and this man approaches me and asks me to sit next to him on the sleigh. Oh my God! We have so much fun the entire day and for once I feel happy to be there.

In the evening there is a clubbing event organized by the hotel, and we all decide to go there. I am all dressed up and happy, hoping I will meet him again. As soon as I enter the club I see him, and our faces just illuminate the moment our eyes intersect each other. We sit next to each other and talk the entire time. He asks me if I could join him for the New Year’s party and stay with them at the table because there is a space available as one of the friends in their group couldn’t make it. Without thinking of the consequences, I answer him a straight yes.

Tonight is the big night, I didn’t sleep for the past two nights and I feel drained. I am looking all day for him and I cannot see him. He is the only reason why I am happy being there. My neighbor’s daughter helps me with the makeup. I am never good with it anyways. While she is applying the makeup, all I am doing is thinking of him and I am hoping that he will be waiting for me as he promised.

As soon as I pass though the door where the New Year’s party is taking place, his face lightens up as if he was waiting for me this whole time. He stands up and comes straight to me and accompanies me to his table. Nicely, he introduces me to everyone and I am so happy that they all like me. His friend, the one who smells nice, tells me that he hasn’t seen his friend so happy in a very long time, and I am just perfect for him. I don’t know what he is trying to imply but I feel happy.

In five minutes, it is midnight and he asks me to dance with him. I feel so safe and protected in his arms that I don’t want him to let go of me. Right at midnight, while we are dancing on our own inner song, he whispers in my ear if I want to marry him. I instantly say yes! I don’t know why but I feel he is the one. This night is magical. He tells everyone at the table that he has asked me to marry him and I said yes, and they all congratulate us. After the party, he and his friends convince me to sleep in their room where there was one bed available and I didn’t need to sleep on the floor. I didn’t want to but they all insist and I kind of agree. After everyone is asleep, he steals a kiss from me, and tells me he will go in the morning because he needs to start his work but he will call me and write to me. I just didn’t want that moment to end.

He wrote to me for six months and called me almost every week. Couple of times, he asked me to come and meet him, but how could I when I was living with my parents; I was only 16 and had no income or courage to do anything. One day he calls and tells me he is 14 years older to me and that I am very young and need to finish my college, go to a university and make a future for myself. He tells me he doesn’t want to take all this away from me no matter how much he likes me and it is the best for us to stop talking.

He was a very intelligent man, and he spoke more than three languages and worked for a multinational company. He is the reason why I learnt to speak more than one language and went to university to study. I just want him to be proud of me. I never met him again in my life, but I always hoped I will meet him someday. The memory of him is so strong in my head that even today he is the man of my dreams. But then if he was really to be the man of my dreams, why would he let go of me? Was he the first and the only honest man I had met? Was he afraid to be with a child? Or was it just a wrong time to meet?