Love Is Just Around the Corner

He had been jumping from relationship to relationship since he was barely twenty years old, looking for something he could never find except with Sophia.

  As I was saying, I believed that I had done enough crossing once more the lines of their lives in an almost unexplained chance. But no, they were determined to admit defeat as the only result. They just had to have given each other's phone numbers and kept in touch so the flame was still alive. Nevertheless, they chose to let it go out slowly with the breeze of forced oblivion, sinking into the routines of day to day.

  Their own personal fears did the rest. When Sophia decided to contact Adrian through social networks, the fear of suffering was what later determined her not to contact him anymore if it was not Adrian who took the first step. Now he had taken a brave and risky step, a greater one than she could expected for, traveling to Pasadena for a project he did not know the real viability because, indeed, he had almost invented it, just to try to be near her. And, once again, fear, that powerful rival, stepped in and prevented him from confessing to him his true motives for being there.

  In the midst of all this insane cocktail of fears and cowardice was Lisa, who was probably the one to lose most. For her, Sophia was more than her best friend. She adored and admired her in equal parts. Since she had met her, she had clung to her friendship as someone who was grasping at straws because he believes it to be his last option to save himself.

  Lisa had not had much luck in her life so far. She was working hard to be able to stay at the University's geology department, but it was difficult because she was competing for the same position with a partner of department whom she did not get along well with, who had very strong arguments that included a diabolical plan to discredit her in front of the professor and head of the department. Besides, she was smart but not as bright as her friend. Speaking about friendship, it can not be said that she would have done too well. She had always had people to go out with, because she was very funny, the life of the party. However, no real girl friend or boy friend until she found Sofia, to whom his iron-bound values, sometimes too strict, ​​made her a totally loyal person.

  When Adrian called her for a drink, she could not believe it. In fact, she had thought that she would have no choice with him, for several reasons: first, because he was a very handsome man who attracted attention with such exotic features, his energetic and vigorous eyes, dark skin, black hair and that intellectual air that his black-eyed glasses gave him. The second reason was that everyone at Caltech knew that he was a physicist with an extraordinary worldwide reputation and he had published interesting advances in some theories. The last and perhaps the most important reason, because, deep down inside her, she thought there was something between him and Sophia, which would leave her out of the equation. As opportunity presented itself in front of her, she clearly had not thought to waste it for a second.

  Despite my efforts, things began to go quite fast. They started to come out and they saw each other more often. Lisa fell madly in love with Adrian. It was all she had ever sought in a relationship, while he was not aware of the effect that this game he had started had on her.

  Meanwhile, Sophia began to distance from them. When Lisa or Adrian tried to see or stay with her, it did not matter whether the did together or separately, she put any pretext. Invariably, there was always something that prevented her. In addition, she began to enroll on all the congresses, conferences and activities related to her field of study that kept her away from Pasadena. Once more, she sought refuge at work, hiding her feelings in the depths of her lair. She was deeply disappointed by both of them, and because she was unable to confess what she felt, she invented a thousand excuses to avoid having to be with any of them.

  Adrian was becoming more and more convinced that going to California had been a huge mistake, probably the biggest he had ever committed in his life. Not even for the fifteen years they'd been apart had he felt so far from Sophia. At least, before all this nonsense in which they had submerged, he knew that the option to have her was indisputably available because their friendship remained intact and untouched. But now, what did they have? Nothing. Coldness. Dodge. Pretexts. An emotional distance that seemed insurmountable.

  On the other hand, he had been an unconscious, leaving behind everything he had, what he had worked so hard to achieve, in order to to start a new career there. The crude reality was not as he had told it, but the project had been a proposal he had made without being too convinced that it could reach any port. He had left Heidelberg with no guarantee of being able to return, thus risking his successful and prestigious career as a theoretical physicist. How could he have been blinded like this?

  And finally, there was the relationship with Lisa. He was beginning to realize that he had gone too far. They had been dating for about three months and she was talking about living together to save money and other excuses. He was only trying to put Sophia on the edge and, after that, he expected her to show some reaction, but the only one he had found was to move away from him and, at the same time, from her friend. He felt that he was at a real crossroads, and in addition, the guilt made him feel intoxicated because he had managed to hurt two people at the same time. On the one hand, the relationship with Lisa had to end up. On the other hand, he needed to have a private conversation with Sophia and finally reveal to her what his yearnings had been and the motives that had brought him there. As soon as she returned from the Congress in New York, he would not let the opportunity pass for another second.

  CAPÍTULO 12: FORSEEING THE UNEXPECTED

  Every day we have to make decisions in life. Some that usually do not matter: coffee or tea, I take the subway or the bus, Eastwood or Scorsese's film, I listen to the Sia’s album or the Artic Monkeys’ record, I go out with my friends or I stay at home, turn this street or the next. All insignificant. At least, in appearance. Sometimes these small decisions will inevitably lead us to an address that we would not have voluntarily decided to take. Suddenly, we turn in the wrong street and we find an event that disrupts our life forever.

  Other decisions are obviously important, but we blind ourselves and either do not take the right or just something prevents us from seeing it. In that oblique dynamic of unrelated errors, Sophia and Adrian, two clairvoyant mind scientists unable to make the right decisions in their personal life, had made themselves almost like a pair of emotional illiterates.

  Sophia returned from New York, that is, another trip that kept her in her unreal bubble of "nothing has happened here." She was still determined to give her life a touch of normalcy and regain the serenity she seemed to have missed with the events of the preceding months. She tried anything that would distract her from the feelings that were sinking deep in her heart. And when I say anything, I mean things quite unusual for her.

  At the first opportunity he had, Adrian went to her office to talk to her. Since he had made a firm decision to repair all the mess he had caused, he had hardly been able to rest. Neither he knew where nor how to begin. He had not measured the consequences of his actions and he could not take any moment else to repair the damage done. However, in his previous elucidations, in the visualization of this encounter with Sophia, he never imagined what he was really going to find.

  - Hello, may I come in? - Adrian said.

  - Hello. Well, you get me a little busy. Can we leave it for another time? - Sophia excused with a certain coldness and indifference.

  - No, we can’t. You've been avoiding me for so long that I don’t remember the last time we talked.

  Suddenly a blond man in his forties entered the office. Adrian had no idea who he might be, because he had never seen him there before. Nonetheless, he had a feeling which he did not like at all and he would soon find out who he was.

  - I finally found the coffee machine. Don’t think it was so simple - he said, not noticing Adrian's presence.

  - Kyle, I'll introduce you to Adrian. He also works at Caltech.

  - Nice to meet you, Adrian - he said gently.
br />   - Me too. I’m a friend of Sofia and you are ...

  - Me? Well, we've been going out for a few weeks, call it whatever you want - he said as he took Sophia by the shoulders.

  Adrian felt the world crumbled down over him. The presentiment, that bad omen that had invaded him only seconds before, was confirmed with complete rotundity. Actually, he thought it was not surprising and that he had been naive to think that she would be there, in her self-imposed celibacy for her fear of failure and pain, waiting for him forever. Sophia was a beautiful woman, she had always been. Any man would want to be with her. And that was just what had happened. Did it make sense now to say anything to Sophia about everything that it had been tormenting him lately? He decided that it had not been a good idea and that it would be better to leave things as they were between them.

  - If you had to talk about something important, I can go and leave you alone.

  - No, I was leaving. I just went to say hello because I haven’t seen her for many days and, as she lately barely responds to my calls or messages, I just wanted to make sure she was okay. I see that yes.

  - Well, I'm glad to meet you, really. I'm glad to know that my girl has friends who care about her