Total Eclipse of the Heart (part 1)

It was Christmas time and I’d just run away from my dreary former life in Vancouver and returned to the closest place that resembled home for a bit of time to sort out what I would do next. It was there that my good friend M told me that her ex-boyfriend, V, would also be coming home (alone) for the holidays and so I sent him a short email saying that I was also in Bogotá and that we would probably see each other at some point. He responded positively and we agreed to plan a group outing during the weeks that followed. I should clarify that at this point I barely really knew him: I had met him five years previously while I was together with T and had instantly developed a crush on him. I remember sitting across from him over afternoon tea and asking myself why I was wasting time with T (who will go down in history as the worst boyfriend I’ve ever had) when I could be with a guy like that. It was just a passing thought really, until M related to me a few days later that V had expressed interest in me and actually said to M that if he weren’t already with her, he’d be with me. That comment thrilled me at the time although in hindsight I think I should have questioned its inappropriateness, not to mention the sheer arrogance of assuming that all women, all the time are at your complete disposal. (Sadly, this seems to be true for any half-way decent man with no obvious physical or mental defects.)

And so the next five years went by and V stayed in the back of my head. I bumped into him at least once, on a visit home with the girlfriend he’d left M for: a nice but dull and homely biologist we suspected he stayed with not only because she tolerated his frequent infidelities but for professional motives as well.

Fortunately for me, M went to the countryside for Christmas so that when I returned to the city from my own family reunion, I had V all to myself. We spent that first afternoon on a long walk around the city center, finally getting to know each other and commenting on our mutual appreciation for those things that are typically undervalued by most people in Bogotá and that ultimately fall victim to the sad Miami-fication that has destroyed certain parts of the city. As night drew near (making it unsafe to continue our pleasant derivé) he suggested we go have a drink somewhere but because it was December 26th and few places were open (not to mention that there are shockingly few agreeable bars in a city of over 9 million) we ended up buying a bottle of wine and going back to the apartment where I was staying. There, we made ourselves comfortable in the living room and I suppose by that time I knew something was going to happen.