The knock was light, as if the person who wanted to come in was of two minds while standing at the door. One urged them to enter and the other to walk away after knocking, as if to imply that there was no one in the office. I know these knocks well. They are like musical notes expressing an artist’s spiritual world, but in this case, they express the emotions before a psychologist’s door, where they have come for counseling.
I did not answer; I was waiting for the next knock. At the same time, accustomed to such cases, I stood up. If there was no knock, I would go out to the door. The knock was repeated, this time more resolute, more precise, as if to say:
“Attention here, sir!”
“Come in!”
The door opened slowly, like the page of a book to be read for the secrets it holds inside. I often saw the door as a book cover, which opened, and everyone who came wrote one more page in the novel I was preparing for publication. I simply elevated the events into art, because they came to me ready-made.
A woman in her early forties appeared at the door.
“May I come in, sir?”
“You may come in, ma’am,” I said, showing her the chair and pulling it slightly toward me as a sign of respect.
She sat down and looked around, but it was clear she was on pins and needles. Unsettled, as if startled or frightened by something that had happened to her.
“Calm down! You are at home here.”
She smiled slightly.
“Why are you smiling?”
“At your words! I am not at peace in my own home, which is why I am here with you.”
Her eyes were lined and tired.
“Would you like me to order you a coffee? How do you take it?”
“I would like that,” she whispered and lowered her head. “A filter coffee, I think it would calm me down somewhat.”
“Do you take it with milk?”
She nodded.
I stood up and poured it into a large cup. I always keep this kind of coffee plugged in at work, both for myself and for the patients. I placed it in front of her and sat down.
The first thing a psychologist does is observe the guest. He tries to go deep into his or her world, to understand their state of mind more or less, and then to learn about the shock the soul has suffered, as well as all the senses in general.
While she drank her coffee, I entered her world, her gaze. It seemed to me I could hear her heartbeat and the river of blood flowing through her body. She blinked lightly, but did not move, nor did she speak. Deep in her gaze, it seemed that spring had departed and an entire hurricane had ruined all the crops of her soul. Their sky was overcast, sorrowful, and it looked as if a downpour of worries would begin at any moment.
Her features were beautiful, even at such an age. Her eyes were a mirror where you could see and read everything. A round face, curly and very thick hair, like a forest where a woodcutter’s axe has never passed. Pleasant cheekbones, small lips lined with a light red. Closed lips that kept silent; to make them whisper their pain, you had to search for the key to success. She had fragile shoulders, a small chest, and a shapely body. She looked plump, like a child radiating health from every part of her body.
“Where do you live?”
“In Italy!”
“Have you come from Italy?”
“No, I came to my sister’s for a holiday, but I have heard of you. You are friends on the internet and you live in the same city. At her house, I read some psychology books you have written. I came for you to give me one of them too. I really liked the events I read on their pages.”
“I have them here,” I said, pointing to the bookcase. “You can take them when you leave. If you came for this, thank you, you can take them right now and go if you are busy.”
“No, no! I came to you. I want you to listen to me!” she said, lowering her head as if caught in guilt.
“I read the sadness in your eyes, ma’am. Do not lower your head. I am listening to you!”
“I am very sad, sir! I am so sad that many times it crosses my mind to stop living. I cannot sleep, I have anxiety, and I want to eat all day. As a result of this, I have also put on weight, but in my soul I am light, very light. My soul has lost its weight and its desire to blossom. The winter wind that swallowed me shook everything off me, both the joys and the desires I had before. I am cold, I feel alone and lost.”
“Why, ma’am, tell me, please. What has happened to you? What is your name?”
“Andela!”
“Do you have a family?”
“Yes, I am married. I have a sixteen-year-old son and a nineteen-year-old daughter, as well as a husband, of course!”
“Does your problem have to do with your children or your husband?”
“No, it has nothing to do with either the children or my husband, but with me…”
“Then?”
She looked up.
“I went back…”
(I knew it.)
“To my first love…”
At that moment, her face changed. She was no longer the suffering woman. She was the girl she had once been.
(First love never returns as a memory. It returns as an identity.)
“He found me… on social media… after twenty-five years…”
Her voice grew soft.
“And everything… ignited again…”
(Nothing had ever been extinguished. It had only been buried.)
“We talked every night… he made me feel… alive…”
She placed her hand over her heart.
(A person does not seek love… they seek the sensation that makes them feel alive.)
“Then… we decided to meet…”
She closed her eyes.
“On a ship… It was night…” she said in a low voice. “The sky was filled with stars… as if everything had been arranged for us…”
(These are not descriptions. They are the soul’s justifications for what is about to happen.)
“The sea was calm… but inside me there were waves…”
He was beside me. Not very close… but enough to feel his presence.
“We didn’t speak much…” she said. “We didn’t need to…”
(Because words are for people who do not feel each other.)
“When he touched my hand…”
She held her breath for a moment. “…it was as if someone had given me back the life I had lost…”
(The touch was not physical. It was the return of her forgotten identity.)
“In the room… there was silence… only breathing…”
Her voice became almost inaudible.
“I felt no shame… I felt no fear… only a feeling I had never known…”
(Wrong. She had known it… but she had not lived it.)
“It was like being, for the first time… me…”
Tears slid down silently.
“That night… was mine…”
(And this is why the pain is so great. Because that night was not just a moment… it was a possible life.)
“Then… everything was destroyed…”
Her voice grew stronger.
“His wife called me on the phone… she humiliated me… she made me feel like… nothing…”
“And him?”
“He vanished…”
(No. He did not vanish. He returned to what he had always been.)
“I have two voices inside me…” she said. “One accuses me… the other justifies me…”
“And you… where are you?”
She did not answer.
(Because she is no longer a whole. She is split into two parts.)
“I cannot concentrate… I cannot sleep… I live that night again… every day…”
(Because that night is the only place where she feels complete.)
I looked at her for a long time.
(This is not a story of betrayal. This is the story of a woman who was not loved the way she needed to be.)
“Andela…” I said slowly, “you are not broken by what happened…”
She looked up.
“You are broken by what you believed would happen.”
Silence.
(This is the point where a person begins to understand.)
“You did not fall in love with him… but with the version of yourself beside him.”
She looked at me… surprised… but not objecting.
“First love…” I continued, “is often a story that never faced reality. That is why it remains pure.”
“But that feeling was real…” she whispered.
“Yes. Very real.”
(Never deny the feeling.)
“But it was not a gift from him… it was a part of you that awoke.”
She remained silent for a long time.
“Does that mean… that I haven’t lost it?”
“It means you searched for it outside yourself.”
Her tears fell more calmly.
(Here is where healing begins. Not when the pain stops… but when its meaning changes.)
“And now?…”
“Now you must learn to live without depending on a feeling that lifted you up… but did not hold you.”
“What about that night?”
“Keep it…” I said. “But as a memory… not as a refuge.”
(Because any refuge built on illusion… becomes a prison).
When she stood up, she was calmer. Not healed… but more real.
“Will I be alright?” she asked at the door.
I looked at her for a long time.
“You will learn not to lose yourself… even when you love.”
She smiled faintly… and walked out.
I wrote:
“There are loves that do not come to live,
but to awaken what has been sleeping inside us. And when they awaken… it is not the loss of the other that hurts… but the return of oneself to silence.”
EPILOGUE
A few months passed.
The seasons changed without making a sound, as they always do when a person is busy confronting themselves. Andela was no longer the woman who had walked into my office with trembling hands and eyes tired from insomnia. Nor the one who had lived a night like an eternity. And nor the one who had been struck down by that eternity.
She was… something in between.
And perhaps, for the first time in her life, this “in between” did not frighten her.
It was a mild afternoon in Italy. The kitchen window was open and a light spring breeze drifted in, moving the curtains like a quiet breath.
On the table was a cup of coffee—the same kind she had drunk that day in my office. But this time… her hands were not trembling.
The children were talking in the next room. Their voices no longer seemed like a distant noise to her.
She heard them.
She felt them.
(Because a person does not return to others… without first returning to themselves.)
She sat down and for a moment did nothing. She just stayed still. Once, silence used to frighten her. Now… it held her. From time to time, her mind still wandered to that night. Not with the previous pain. But as a warm memory… that no longer demanded a continuation.
She had understood something. That night had not been the beginning of a new life…
but the end of a long wait inside her. And this set her free.
One evening, as she stepped out onto the balcony, she looked at the sky. It was filled with stars… almost like that night on the ship. She stood there for a while. She took a deep breath. For a brief moment, an old feeling tried to return, that familiar tremor… that longing that rises in the chest. But this time… she did not follow it. She let it pass. Like a wave that comes and recedes on its own.
(Because healing is not about no longer feeling…
but about not losing yourself when you feel.)
Her phone was on the table.
That number… which once seemed like a door to life… was now simply a number.
She did not delete it. But she did not seek it out anymore.
(Because when a feeling heals, there is no need for revenge…
nor for proof.)
On an ordinary day, without thinking much about it, she looked at herself in the mirror. She lingered longer than usual. She touched her face lightly.
“I am not lost…” she whispered.
And for the first time… she believed it. That night she slept without forcing any memory back.
Without seeking to live something that had passed. Sleep came peacefully. Complete. Like a reconciliation. And somewhere, on an invisible page of her life, it was written:
She did not lose love. She found herself… beyond it.
PILO ZYBA
