THE PART OF ME HE NEVER LOVED - PART ONE

Part One The first time I met Alfred, I was carrying a notebook full of unfinished stories and a heart that had become suspicious of beginnings. I had stopped believing in the kind of love people wrote about in books. Not because I didn't want it. I simply knew too much about how stories worked. People met. They connected. They said things that sounded beautiful at midnight and impossible by morning. They promised forever before they had even learned each other's middle names. I had written enough fictional love stories to know that real life rarely followed the plot. So when Alfred walked into my life, I wasn't looking for him. I was sitting alone in a small café on a rainy Thursday evening, staring at the same paragraph on my laptop for almost twenty minutes. I had written three sentences. Deleted two. Then written the first one again. I was beginning to hate my main character. “She's not going to say yes.” I looked up. A man was standing beside my table. I frowned. “Excuse me?” He pointed at my laptop. “Your character. She's not going to say yes.” I stared at him for a moment before looking back at my screen. “You've been reading my work?” “Only the last sentence.” “That is still reading my work.” He smiled. “I apologise.” “You don't look very sorry.” “I am. A little.” I should have been annoyed. Instead, I laughed. It was a small laugh, but something about his expression changed when he heard it. “You're a writer,” he said. “How did you know?” “You've been staring at that screen like it's personally offended you.” I closed my laptop. “That could mean I'm a writer or I'm unemployed.” “Fair point.” He pulled out the chair opposite me. “May I?” I hesitated. Then nodded. He sat. “Alfred.” “Freya.” He repeated my name quietly, almost as if he were testing how it sounded. “Freya.” “What?” “Nothing.” I raised an eyebrow. He smiled. “You have one of those names that sounds like it belongs in a novel.” “I am a writer. Everything about me belongs in a novel.” “That sounds dangerous.” “It probably is.” We talked for almost two hours. Not the kind of conversation where two strangers desperately search for things to say. It was effortless. He asked what I wrote, and I told him. “Mostly stories about people who love each other badly and somehow find their way back to themselves.” He looked at me. “That's a very specific kind of sadness.” I shrugged. “People are complicated.” “Or maybe love is.” I smiled. “Maybe.” He asked about my favourite book. I asked about his family. He told me about his mother, his younger sister, the job he had almost quit twice, and the strange pressure of being the person everyone expected to have his life figured out. I told him about writing. About the stories that arrived in my head at inconvenient hours. About waking up at 2 a.m. because a character had suddenly decided to confess something. About how sometimes I could spend an entire day talking to fictional people and then struggle to explain how I was feeling to a real one. He laughed. “You sound slightly crazy.” “I am.” “I like that.” I looked at him. “You've known me for two hours.” “Exactly.” There was something about Alfred that made me forget to be careful. That frightened me more than I wanted to admit. When we finally left the café, the rain had become heavier. He stood beside me beneath the small awning. “You have an umbrella?” “No.” He looked at me. “You're a writer without an umbrella?” “Writers are allowed to have flaws.” He laughed and opened his. We walked together. The umbrella was too small for two people, so our shoulders kept touching. Neither of us moved away. At the junction where we had to separate, he looked at me. “Can I see you again?” I smiled. “You haven't even asked for my number.” “I was hoping you'd notice.” I gave it to him. He called immediately. My phone rang. I looked at the screen. “Happy?” “Very.” He walked away. I watched him for longer than I should have. That night, at 11:47 p.m., my phone lit up. Alfred: Did you get home safely? I smiled. Me: Yes. Three dots appeared. Alfred: Good. I was wondering. I stared at the message. It was such a small thing. But sometimes the smallest things are the ones that find their way into the softest parts of you. We began talking every day. Sometimes for hours. Sometimes for only a few minutes. He learned that I hated being called when I was writing. He learned that I couldn't sleep properly when I had an unfinished chapter. He learned that I liked my latte almost unbearably hot. I learned that he became quiet when something was bothering him. That he rubbed his thumb against his palm when he was nervous. That he hated being pitied. That he always checked whether I had eaten. One evening, after I had spent an entire day complaining about a character who refused to behave, he showed up at my apartment with food. I opened the door and stared at him. “What are you doing here?” “You said you hadn't eaten.” “I was exaggerating.” “You said, and I quote, ‘If this woman doesn't stop ruining my story, I will throw my laptop out the window and starve to death.’” I laughed. “You remembered that?” “I remember things you say.” Something inside me became quiet. We ate on the floor because I hadn't cleaned the dining table. He didn't complain. After dinner, we sat beside each other, talking about nothing. At some point, my head found his shoulder. Neither of us mentioned it. His hand rested gently over mine. It felt natural. “Freya?” “Hmm?” “Are you afraid of love?” I lifted my head. “That's a strange question.” “Answer it.” I looked at him for a moment. “Yes.” “Why?” “Because I write about it too much.” He smiled. “That doesn't answer the question.” I sighed. “Because people change.” His smile disappeared. I continued. “Sometimes they don't even change. Sometimes you just finally see them clearly.” He was quiet. Then he said, “That's why you shouldn't fall in love with who someone might become.” I looked at him. “You're surprisingly wise.” “Don't tell anyone.” I laughed. Then he reached up and gently moved a strand of hair away from my face. His fingers lingered for only a second. I could feel my heartbeat. “Can I kiss you?” The question caught me off guard. Not because I didn't want him to. Because he asked. I nodded. He leaned closer. The kiss was soft and then intense.When he pulled away, he looked at me as if he was waiting for me to decide whether he had crossed a line. I smiled. “You can do that again.” He laughed softly. This time, I kissed him first. And somewhere between that kiss and the way he held me afterward, I stopped thinking about how stories ended. For the first time in a long time, I was interested in what happened next. Weeks passed. Alfred became part of my everyday life so quietly that I didn't notice how deeply he had settled into it. He read my drafts. He listened to me talk about characters as though they were real people. Sometimes he'd challenge my endings. “You can't keep making everyone suffer.” “Why not?” “Because I'm tired.” “You're not even in the story.” “I still have feelings.” I'd laugh. He made writing feel less lonely. And somehow, he made me feel less lonely too. One night, I was sitting on my balcony with my laptop when he came up behind me. “You're still working?” “I have a deadline.” “You've been saying that for three hours.” “Writers lie.” “Apparently.” He bent down and kissed my forehead. I closed the laptop. “Done?” “Done.” He smiled. Then he sat beside me. I leaned against him. We watched the city lights flicker below us. “Freya?” “Yes?” “Do you think people can meet at the wrong time and still be right for each other?” I thought about it. “I think timing can ruin something beautiful.” He turned toward me. “What if the timing is right?” I smiled. “Then maybe you shouldn't waste it.” He kissed me. And for a while, I believed that was what we were. Something beautiful that had arrived at exactly the right time. I didn't know then that sometimes the most dangerous thing about a person isn't the way they lie to you. It's how honestly they can make you feel loved before you discover what they actually wanted. And I was still too happy to ask the question that would eventually break my heart. What did Alfred love about me? I thought I knew the answer. But I was wrong.

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