I’m sharing this here because there’s something terrible about to happen to me, and its going to happen, I can’t make it go away, I can already feel it. It makes me angry and sad to admit that this shit is real and it’s happening to me. Let me explain, it’s going to sound ridiculous to you, I know.
There’s a urban legend in my town about a girl who curses your romantic life if you talk to her, more specifically, a dead girl. It always seemed like nonsense to me, but now its not.
I was 21 when I met her, back then I used to work at a night club and ended my shift by four or five am. It’s a small town so I walked home in the dim almost-morning light, I always passed by the 24 hour restaurant-caffe that supposedly ‘’had’’ the dead girl that could curse you.
The legend went like this: a couple in their twenties meet up for a talk at the restaurant and the guy apparently breaks up with her and leaves, she stays, cries in silence and drinks wine for hours, no talking, almost not even blinking, already drunk she spills the wine in the table cloth and gets up, goes to the bathroom, breaks the mirror and slits her throat.
If you see her at the restaurant, sitting at the last table looking by the window and drinking wine you can talk to her, but you are gonna end up exactly like her.
It became part of the folklore of the place, weirdly the restaurant gained popularity for the tragedy and lots of people went to have dinner there. But it stopped after the first two suicides.
And its always girls, young women. Men can’t see her, no men has ever seen her. But the women who claimed to have seen and talk to her, always kill themselves in the verge of a bad breakup. Weirdly, their relationships or even marriages are dream-like, but in a matter of weeks or months, it crumbles. And it drives them crazy, absolutely insane, they shout that they cant deal with the ache.
When I heard about the ‘’the girls of the ache’’ like they called it, I always classified it as bullshit and mere coincidence, collective hysteria, something like that. A boring town needs this type of stuff to happen to spice things up a little bit.
But yes, I was 21 when I met her. Short and blonde hair and ocean-like blue eyes, she confessed to me that she used to go at the club just to see me. I was a bartender. So, we matched. We simply, perfectly, and completely matched. She is my soulmate, I’m totally sure of that. Every time I look at her its like the first time, pink lipstick and pink lights surrounding her. She’s the love of my life and I’m so lucky that I met her. I’m so lucky to love her. I really am.
But I also met the cursed woman. The first one. The one who started it all.
It was a couple of months ago, early afternoon and I was having drinks at the infamous restaurant, my friends left and I stayed trying to kill some time while my girlfriend finished her shift at the hospital.
Then I saw her, exactly as the girls describe her months before they killed themselves, well-pressed beige dress, not a single wrinkle, long legs perfectly crossed under the table, meticulously tied blond hair, drinking wine, and looking out the window.
I was a little drunk and curious and totally skeptical, so I walked over. I didn’t even say a word when she motioned for me to sit down.
“I think this is my sixth” she told me, pointing to her glass.
I laughed and raised my whiskey and we toasted, when I looked into her eyes she looked drunk and deeply sad, a kind of sadness that I can’t measure.
We talked about anything, it was like having a conversation with another friend, totally natural, nothing scary lurking around.
Until I noticed, her glass appeared full, from one moment to another, it never ended.
Despite having heard so much about her, I had never heard her name. Deborah. She was 23 years old. Just like all ‘‘the girls of the ache’’. I began to feel a sense of discomfort and when I looked towards the street again, it was already nighttime. Like three hours have passed in just twenty minutes.
“What the-“
'’He has been very distant lately you know, three months to be exact, something in his gaze is cold, just towards me’’
I looked up confused and now, not only did she have a sad and lost gaze, but also her mascara was running with tears and I noticed how her clothes and hair were covered in dust, something that wasn’t there when I first approached her, she kept saying something about the conversation that she was going to have that night with him.
Before I could say anything, I began to notice my surroundings, the restaurant was somewhat crowded but no one passed by our table, no waiter took our order. Her glass kept filling itself and so did my glass of whiskey.
'’Have you ever felt as if a million needles filled with the most painful poison in the world are embedded in your skin? In all your body? And it’s paralyzing, you can’t speak, you can’t do anything but to stay where he left you’’
I started crying too, although I didn’t know why.
'’No’’ I answered, I couldn’t say anything else.
'’In time, you will feel it’’
The glass she was holding suddenly spilled onto the tablecloth, staining red.
'’I’m going to the bathroom to get something to clean’’ she said calmly.
I was like glued to the chair.
She got up and I watched as she walked to the bathroom. I didn’t wait for her to come back, because I knew she wouldn’t. I walked out of that place fast as lighting, but at the same time it was too late.
Two weeks after that, my girlfriend started to act different, distant, something cold in her eyes. She leaves the room to answer any call, sometimes she doesn’t come home to sleep, we don’t go out anymore.
It’s unavoidable, I know.
And yes, I have tried. I’ve tried to talk things first, over, and over and millions of times.
But I just can’t, she comes back to me the next day, she tells me ‘’it’s only you’’, and I fall in the trap, and she walks away from me again.
I turned 23 almost a month ago, I know what’s going to happen.
All of you think I’m being ridiculous, that we just got to figure things out or that I will find someone else, none of you can understand it.
But in time, you all will feel the ache and you all will know.