The Girl Behind the Window
I rushed by the window in a rapid pace, hoping she wouldn’t notice me if she’s occupying her territory at the cafe, and apparently she’s not there because I had a slight peak with the side of my eyes and found a deserted seat. “Odd.” I thought to myself, because after exchanging glances with her at the start of the training program three weeks ago, I assumed I had her routines figured out, is it possible that I’m mistaken? “Very odd”.
In day one, all participants of the program gathered in the main hall, which is almost in the size of a grand mosque, that’s when I first saw her, sitting in the far end of the room, a selection that is much similar to her seat selection at the cafe, and while at the cafe we were separated by a soundproof glass window, in this room we are separated by twenty something other participants. Twenty something individuals from different government entities and private sector companies who introduced themselves one by one when the time for introductions arrived, and of all the names that were thrown on the walls of my memory, only her’s that stuck, “Leila”.
By the end of the second week, I had already established a habit of exchanging glances with Leila as I pass by the window seat at the cafe, it was the only place I could see her because, earlier in the program, the participants were divided into two separate classes, and I had wished to end up in the same class as she was but we don’t always get our wishes. At the time, the program had focused on individual skills like communications, critical thinking, and problem solving, areas I was pretty good at, ranking second best in my class, beaten only by the nerd who made sure to be the trainer’s favorite from day one. My performance was giving me the confidence to, perhaps, upgrade the fruitless exchange of glances into sharing an iced americano at her usual spot.
But then we arrive to the third week where everything changed, see, we were again gathered in the main hall to be informed that we ran through the individual skills section of the program and we’re moving to team-work. The two classes will be assigned a team leader and the two teams will compete for a prize at the end of the program. The team leaders were the participants with the highest scores in each class, for my team, and due to the unexpected absence of the trainer’s favorite nerd, the leader was me, and for the other team, to my horror, it was Leila. It was then when I learned about Leila’s fierce competitiveness, from that moment I wasn’t seen anything like the brief glances we exchanged for the past weeks, but as an obstacle that must be destroyed.
As I passed by the empty seat by the window, I had a quiet sigh of relief, removed the earbuds from my ears for I won’t need music to destress anymore. Enter the building from the tinted-glass gates, across the side pathway with the navy carpet, skipping the elevators and through the door with the fire exit sign that leads to the stairs ascending to the classes level only to find Leila standing in the middle of the staircase. I felt like a mosquito flying into an elaborate spiderweb, because the way she looked at me showed that just as I studied her routines in the past three weeks, she also studied mine. “We need to talk” is a phrase most people don’t want to hear from their partners, let alone from this jet-black haired demon, I tried to play dumb and asked what she wants but she was direct like an arrow, “I see what you’re trying to do, you will not beat me.” I put one more effort in showing indifference by explaining that I’m not interested in competition and that I wasn’t the original team leader in the first place.
It was then when I took the extra few steps up the stairs, got to Leila’s level, and felt an immediate reduction in intimidation when I realized, now that I’m face to face with her, how small she is up-close. But I also noticed, as I looked deeper into her eyes, what color they were. I have seen brown eyes all my life, some colored like honey, others like hazelnut, some other like dark chocolate, but this pair stood out like no other, like images from a space telescope revealing newly discovered distant galaxies. I stumbled to speak out my response, which lost a big chunk of its intended aggressiveness, “If you think you’re better than me, I would like to see you prove it”.
“I am.” she quickly responded, showing that she wan’t moved by my shaken response, “And I will” she added as she casually fixed the likely-poisonous blades of hair behind her pointy ears. There was a moment of silence where we stood face to face, she maintained her piercing state that’s now looking upwards instead of downwards, I was trying to maintain looking like I wasn’t on the edge of breaking. A moment that was cut short before it gets a chance to evolve into anything, “Well, if you checked your email you would know that today’s class has been postponed.” I realized that I was too concerned with avoiding her that I hadn’t checked my phone all day, so when i did, as she walked past me, I found that I did get an email about an hour ago. She was already through the door that was slowly closing by the time I turned around, I could hear her footsteps, and I don’t know how I got myself to call out “Can I join you?” and the footsteps halted.
