She was happy. Yes, Kate was truly happy that night, just as she hadn’t been for a very long time. Yet, her happiness wasn’t related to a specific moment but to everything that happened at that moment because, besides the jokes she heard that night and the happy moments she spent next to her three new friends, the atmosphere in Alex’s small apartment was something she couldn’t compare to anything else that had happened before in her life. Especially, she couldn’t compare what she felt in that strange apartment to everything that had happened to her since she was in Westport, those few weeks when she had lived mostly alone in that cold hotel room that had to be their new home and bring her and her boyfriend closer to each other.

That new place turned them into strangers in the end. Their relationship got colder and colder and they even weren’t talking to each other anymore. Yes, they had really gotten not to talk to each other anymore that Kate lost the number of the days when she had waited for him to turn back, to tell her at least a word or steal a kiss from her as Alexander had been about to do that night, but it didn’t happen eventually.

Then she smiled. Kate smiled the moment she remembered the man’s clumsiness. She clearly saw it shining in his glance when he looked elsewhere, afraid that she could discover his secret: that he’d been about to allow that strange instinct, which spurred him to kiss the woman who had stolen his heart a couple of weeks ago, to control him.

Instead of a kiss, Alex had stolen a smile from her that night. He also grabbed her hand, like that night when he saved her from those men and then they walked for a long time on the streets, mostly silently rather than talking. They exchanged feelings and thoughts though, like those a human can rarely exchange with someone. Especially, they exchanged smiles, sad mostly because that night Kate got to compare Alex with Jonathan, finding in one only virtue and only defects in the other one.

Honestly, that comparison was mostly for Jonathan with Alex rather than Alex with Ward because, through what Alexander was and showed it to her, it turned out to be a starting point for Kate to wonder if all she lived was real or just her imagination. She didn’t mean that she lived in a story, locked in a tower or something like that, although her cold hotel room could be compared somehow to that tower where the princesses kidnapped by ogres were forced to stay until they accepted to belong to those who kidnapped them. Yet… „It’s still so unfair… Life is unfair mostly and our hearts, which can’t decide whom to love.”

Kate caught this thought crossing her mind when she looked at Erin and Mark, who were laughing loudly after a joke by Flynn, and saw a weird shining in their glances. That shine seemed to be because of love, something she had often seen in her eyes each time she looked in the mirror and thought about Jonathan. At least, Kate had seen that shine at the beginning when she was really in love and when he was still gallant, giving her flowers and dreams. Then, when he started to give her only waiting and the coldness from his soul, Kate stopped seeing that magic shine in her glance. Instead of this, she started to see sadness and disappointment. Even so, she didn’t leave him or leave all that behind, although she knew that maybe it was already time to move on and leave all that behind.

Where to go though? Where should she have gone after that? Kate didn’t know. She couldn’t decide that, and this hurt her. Yes, it hurt more than the waiting, which forced her to stay locked in that hotel room most of the time, immersed in the world of books just to make sure she was able to escape, even if it was for a short time only, the world where she lived and the cruel reality. Kate thought about this all those nights when she tried to fall asleep but she couldn’t. Yes, those thoughts hurt her, making her feel that the nights were cold like ice, just as it was cold the bed under her, despite the good fire that was burning in the fireplace. She felt all this because she was aware that the bed of a beautiful woman couldn’t be warmed by the fire but by the love of the man that had stolen her heart.

Yet, he didn’t come. The man who had stolen her heart one day was far away from her already. He wasn’t far from her only physically but also emotionally, a distance she started to feel more after she had met Alexander, and he started to court her discreetly. Yes, Alex did that even if both of them were aware that their game of seduction and innocent love wouldn’t have brought them anything good or together. Or… yes?!

None of them was sure of that. Actually, they weren’t sure of anything because the love that’s pure and sincere is weird. That love is strange through everything that it makes you feel, something that takes you to the heavens. You feel all this because of the happiness in your soul, something that can make you also reach hell after this when you have the first argument with the one you love or you spot him or her looking at another one. Yet… „All these are simple thoughts eventually, memories about my teenage years or maybe about the first years of my adult life, nothing more,” Kate thought, smiling again. She thought that when she saw how much happiness could be in the souls of the people who were with her that night without asking anything from her.

„What are you thinking so intensely?” Alex asked her when he saw her so lost. Kate didn’t answer though. She just kept looking in front, at Erin and Flynn, who continued their small game of seduction, using jokes and smiles, although their hearts and maybe their glances starved for more than that. Their lips seemed to beg for a kiss; their hands were dreaming of a warm touch; their hearts were longing to lose each other forever in the other one’s eyes, or maybe… to stay together for an entire life. Yet… all that was left was only a long wait and nothing more.

The moment Alex touched her hand on the sly, which she kept on her lap, Kate winced. Looking to her right, where the man was, she saw him insistently looking at her and probably waiting for an answer from her. An answer to a question she hadn’t heard. Yet, she felt weird to tell him about this. She was afraid to tell him that she hadn’t been attentive, and this happened because she was overwhelmed by dreams, memories, and longing for perfection, and all this made her seem out of reality. That’s why she only murmured „Nothing,” eventually, smiling after this. An answer that seemed trivial to her too. Yet, it was the perfect answer that her mind could invent because even if she hadn’t heard that question, she could at least answer something, solving the dilemma of something that seemed to be a problem.

She was wrong though because she saw Alex smiling. „He understood my small trick,” Kate thought, smiling too. She clumsily did that, looking elsewhere while Alex stared at his glass of wine that was filled only half. A glass that was in front of him, at the distance of a kiss only from her glass, which was also half full only.

Their clumsiness hadn’t passed unnoticed though. Flynn had seen it, and Erin also noticed it. Yet, none of them said anything. They only exchanged glances, smiled on the sly, and sipped from the red wine that Mark poured into their glasses after that. Then, thoughtful, they fell prey to the beautiful music that was heard from the gramophone, a music that seemed to have warmed their hearts at that moment, spurring all of them to dream.

Mark and Erin thought that that music was for Alex and Kate for whom they organized the dinner that evening. Yet, they were wrong because that music was also for them. Yes, it was undoubtedly for them too because, listening to it, their hearts were madly beating in their chest while the longing entered their souls… „The longing for her…”

Mark thought that the moment he looked at Erin on the sly and saw her slowly biting her lower lip. At that moment, he wished she had done that because she thought about a kiss. Not with another man or about the kiss of the two in love people from in front of them, but at their kiss. Yet, all these were simple dreams eventually. They were simple longing and hidden desires felt by Flynn, who had fallen in love with Erin when he was still a child. Even so, he had sworn to wear that love in his soul for an entire life because he understood, in time only, that Erin wouldn’t ever see the man in him. At least, he knew that Erin wouldn’t have ever given him a chance to love her as he wanted - like a man who was crazy about the woman he loved.

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He could be her friend though. He could be her trusted friend, the one who could be with her forever, no matter how hard or cruel his life was because Flynn’s life hadn’t ever been sweet either. Despite appearances, Mark Flynn had had a difficult life. Yet, he hadn’t ever told anybody about this. He didn’t even tell Alex about this, even if he considered him his best friend. Mark didn’t say a word to Alex or others because he thought that it wasn’t fair to talk to others about his pain, aware that their life hadn’t also been easy or sweet and that saying something to them wouldn’t have done any good to him or made his life better.

Or maybe…?! Yes, if he had said to at least someone about what he felt, he would have felt released. Who knows?! Maybe he would have felt more alive after that. Yet, he wasn’t sure of anything. That’s why Mark preferred to keep silent about his life, pretending to be careless in many of the cases, preferring to be considered a Don Juan rather than a loser, to be seen as a person that had no care in life rather than like a victim, something Mark Flynn had always hated: to be seen like the victim.

Honestly, Flynn hadn’t ever victimized himself, although he had had enough chances to do that. What he did instead was to grow more: physically and emotionally. He did that when he understood that to survive in that cruel world, which he also considered a jungle, he had to fight. Maybe that world was really a jungle because people, through the masks they generally wear and through everything they wear in their souls, could be undoubtedly considered perfect specimens from the jungle, once it wasn’t anything strange to meet a hyena in the skin of the lamb sometimes. Other times, people threw themselves without life preserved in the tormented sea of life trying to save a poor baby dolphin to realize eventually that whom they held to their chests was a snake in fact. Then, in many cases, one sees, passing by him, hungry wolves, tigers, and lions that fight for supremacy in a world where others see only dreams, trampling the dreamers under their feet to make sure they’d have more. Thus, also considering himself a man who wore a mask, Flynn got to be the one others wanted to see. And, even if he knew that this wasn’t fair, he preferred to do that. It was the only chance he had to survive and move on because nothing was scaring him anymore: neither the betrayal nor falling off the pedestal. It didn’t scare him because he had fallen off it so many times before that he lost the number of times when this happened. That’s why he knew that once down, he could take his mask off. Then, standing up again, to use another one just to make sure he’d move on again, trampling others under his feet just to let them know he was unbreakable.

Nevertheless, Flynn was afraid of something. He was afraid of loneliness, which he was also envious of. Yes, Mark was often envious of those who could be lonely for so long without complaining about this. He was envious even of Kate, about whom he got to find out that was both a lonely woman and a winner. All he found out about her was remarkable, just as what she was doing for her life was remarkable: waiting for the one she loved at the Gate of Love. She was quietly waiting in front of that gate to be opened again, to be left in, and be remunerated for that waiting with a simple kiss or promising her that she wouldn’t be lonely again, even if those promises had been just empty promises eventually.

What Flynn didn’t know or deliberately preferred to ignore was that he was envious of Kate for the simple fact that she still believed in love and that she’d win. He would have liked to be like her, but he wasn’t. Or maybe yes?! He wasn’t so sure of this. All he knew was that that waiting hurt him, just as he knew that the waiting hurt Kate too. It wasn’t easy for any of them to wait in front of the Gate of Love to be open again or for those whom they loved to see them instead of deliberately ignoring them.

Eventually, realizing that he had fallen prey to despair again, Flynn sketched a smile and sipped the wine he still had in his glass. Then, he stretched his hand to the bottle to pour more, but there wasn’t any wine left in that bottle. This made him smile again. „It’s gone,” Mark said after this, making his friends wince.

„What exactly or who?” Erin asked, confused, frowning too.

„Our happiness,” Flynn jokingly replied, pointing with his head at the empty bottle. „Yet, I know where we can buy.”

„Happiness?” Kate asked, staring at him weirdly, struggling not to smile too.

Mark smiled instead, understanding her joke and maybe the irony hidden in the words she said. Even so, he didn’t lose his temper, but responded in a calm and playful voice, „You know, Kate: happiness can be bought sometimes.”

„Not with money though. At least, I think so.”

„Why exactly?” Mark asked, insistently looking at her.

Kate instead looked at the wine in her glass, which she squeezed in her hand. Yet, she said nothing but kept silent for a long time, although she felt the others’insistent glances focused on her. Yes, Kate kept silent even if she knew the answer, which she didn’t want to say loudly, finding it strange to talk to others about it. What she said instead was, „Because… nobody had ever been happy buying happiness with money. I know this very well because I’ve lived in a wealthy family. Even so, I can’t say that I’ve been truly happy.”

„Are you talking about the present or the past?” Erin asked, making Kate wince and stare at her.

„About the past,” Kate rushed to say. Then she smiled again, clumsily. „I was talking about my childhood. About those times when I’ve always been lonely because my parents have always been more preoccupied with their life than about mine.”

„Something that often happens to the children in wealthy families, don’t you think so?” Flynn asked.

His question made everybody stare at him for a while. „Do you think so?” Kate asked eventually. „That it happens the same in every single family? I’m talking about loneliness and pain now!”

„Honestly… I can’t answer this question.”

„Why exactly? You seem to know the answer very well, Mister Flynn.”

Mark smiled again. „Mister Flynn. I’ve heard this name so many times before that I have the feeling that I do something wrong each time I hear it.”

„You might be actually right,” replied Erin, smiling. „You are always doing something wrong. Especially, asking awkward questions like the one you asked Kate not long ago. And, honestly, I didn’t know you could be like that.”

„Like that? How?”

„Nosey! Like a curious mouse, who is always poking his nose in others’business, without knowing that there might be traps somewhere.”

Flynn burst into laughter. „I think traps are everywhere. Wherever you look, you can get into one. Yet, even knowing this, I’m not afraid of that.”

„The reason?” Alex asked in a playful voice. „Is this because you’ve got into traps so many times before that you are an expert now?”

„Honestly, yes. You are right: I’ve fallen into traps so many times in my life. Yet, as I’m a cunning mouse, I’ve always found a way to get rid of them and move on, proudly. Something I intend to do now.”

„What exactly? To get into a trap or to get out of one?” Erin jokingly asked.

„No,” Flynn promptly answered, standing up. „To buy „happiness.” And you, Mister Doyle, go with me!”

„What have I done wrong?” Alex asked, laughing. „To be called Mister Doyle, I mean.”

„Nothing! Yet, you are my friend and this is eventually your name, one you shouldn’t ever feel ashamed of. At least this is what a dear friend told me once: you never choose your name, but you have the chance to make others respect it. So: follow me!”

The safety felt in Flynn’s voice and the fact he headed so fast toward the door just to go and buy a bottle of wine made Alex think. Yet, he said nothing about this, just as he didn’t insist on Mark to tell them about his feelings. He just apologized in front of the ladies, telling them that they’d miss only for a short while, and left the apartment after that.

Left alone, Kate and Erin exchanged glances. They were so amazed because they couldn’t understand anything from what had just happened. Even so, none of them bothered too much about this. Eventually, it could have been one of the men’s weirdness, something that had nothing to do with them. That’s why they simply touched glass from glass and smiled at each other, like two strangers who were trying to be friends starting that night and join their paths in life at a crossroads.