natalia

She struck me as the kind of person who took lots of weekend trips to San Francisco or Los Angeles and had friends named Kat and Ainsley and Logan. She was an open, easy book with no need to hide, with nobody to hide from, and in the few minutes that I sat with her she seemed to experience joy, sadness, and empathy all at once. She was small and seemed nice and lighthearted, in no way did she seem disingenuous, but something about her purposeful charm made me feel like she knew I wasn’t convinced, like she knew I needed some convincing. I’ll admit that I had a hard time believing there was anything too introspective or intuitive going on internally because she seemed wholly unconcerned with anything other than having a great time and trying to get at the very pulsing center of it. She liked the spotlight, she was seemingly quite confident, which had to mean she wasn't a thinker, not an observer – she couldn’t be; she was not like me. I hang back, I blend in, I'm quiet and I listen and read and connect with others in a telepathic way almost completely opposite from the way that she was connecting with me now. I stopped looking at her face. I didn't like her eyes or her name with three syllables. “You don’t like me, do you,” she asked with a teasing smile after the waiter brought our check. I hated her for that. “I do like you,” I said. “I’m sorry. I just don’t believe that you’re a writer.”