Amber and Nathalies world

The hours passed slowly as Amber and I sat in the study waiting for Mario to return. He was out doing the week’s shopping and, as usual, we were home alone during this time. The sound of the clock on the wall was the only thing that broke the silence. We had made ourselves comfortable on the chairs, but the wait dragged on, so we started to look around. Our eyes fell on the large shelf behind us - packed with books, neatly lined up.

“I wonder what Mario is reading?”, Amber mumbled curiously and stood up. I followed her as we inspected the titles. Reference books, novels, biographies - a collection that was as varied as Mario himself. But I discovered something else among all the books.

“Look, Amber…”. I pulled an old, slightly dusty photo album from the shelf.

Amber looked at me with wide eyes. “Oh, that looks old. Shall we have a look inside?”

I nodded and we sat down on the floor together with the album. Amber carefully opened the cover and we began to leaf through the pages.

The first pictures showed Mario at a young age - laughing with friends, on trips, in moments that had long since passed. We saw him as a child, as a teenager, as a young man. But then, on one of the later pages, we paused.

“Who’s that?”, Amber asked quietly.

In the picture, Mario was standing next to a young woman. She was looking at him with a look of familiarity, their bodies slightly inclined towards each other. It wasn’t a random photo. It was immediately obvious: these two had once been close.

I felt a strange mixture of curiosity and awe spreading through me. “You look happy…”.

Amber nodded slowly. “Who is she? And where is she now?”

We browsed for a while longer, finding more pictures of them together, but no answers. Amber finally put the album aside.

I bit my lip thoughtfully. “Amber… Do you think he still mourns her?”

Amber looked at me for a moment, as if weighing up her answer. “I don’t know. Maybe a little?” She shrugged her shoulders. “I mean… they seem to have been together for a long time. There are so many pictures from so long ago.”

I nodded slowly. “Do you think he loves us as much as she did? Or… Are we just a substitute?”

Amber lowered her eyes thoughtfully. “Do you think we’re just a consolation for him?”

I swallowed. “What if he only brought us into his life because he couldn’t cope with the loneliness? What if we’re not enough?”

Amber took my hand and squeezed it gently. “I think we need to ask him.”

I nodded. We would do it - tonight.

Later, when Mario had long since returned home, we sat together on the couch, surrounded by soft classical music. I picked up the photo album and placed it on my lap. Then I looked directly at Mario.

“Mario…”, I began cautiously. “We were rummaging through your shelf today… and we found this album.”

Mario raised an eyebrow in surprise, but said nothing.

Amber scrolled to the picture of the young woman. “Who is she?”, she asked gently. “Were you in love?”

Mario fell silent. His gaze rested on the photo for a long time. Then he took a deep breath and began to talk.

“Yes, we were in love. We were together for five years. We even lived together in an apartment. She was my first and also my last partner. I’ve been alone ever since.”

Amber and I stared at Mario open-mouthed. He had lived with a woman for five years - and then spent all those years alone? It was hard to believe. I could feel my thoughts racing. How could a man like him, warm-hearted, loving and clever, be alone for so long? How could he have spent all those years with no one?

Amber was the first to find her voice again. “You… never lived with anyone again?”, she asked incredulously.

Mario shook his head slowly. “No. After her… there was no one else.”

I couldn’t help but ask, “What happened?”

Mario looked at us, his gaze serious but not sad. “Habit happened”, he said simply. “I didn’t pay enough attention to making every single moment special. I thought everything was fixed. That it would stay that way - forever. But at some point… she broke up with me.”

I frowned at him. “But… you’re such a wonderful person. How can anyone part with you?”

Mario smiled faintly, but it was a smile full of melancholy. He looked at both of us, then asked a counter-question: “Imagine if you just sat in the living room all day. In the morning, I’d pop in to say hello and give you a kiss. And then in the evening I’d say goodnight and give you another kiss. And that’s it. The same every day. No surprises. Nothing special. How would you feel about that?”

Amber and I looked at each other. I swallowed. “That sounds… Sad. Lonely. Like you’re just existing, but not really living.”

Mario nodded slowly. “That’s exactly what happened. And that’s exactly how she felt.” He paused briefly, as if reliving the memories. “She felt like a part of my everyday life, but no longer like a special person in my life. I had thought that it was enough for me to be there when we lived together. But love needs more than that. It needs attention, surprises, the feeling that every moment counts. And I realized that too late.” He sighed and then continued. “I wasn’t always the way you know me.”

He let his gaze wander across the room as if he were delving into the past. “I’ve made a few mistakes in my life. Mistakes that have changed me. I held back feelings, didn’t say things I should have said. And at some point… I forbade myself to feel deeply.”

He paused for a moment, then continued. “It still pains me today that I stood at my late grandfather’s grave - and wasn’t able to cry.”

Amber put her hand on his as if to comfort him. But what could give comfort when you were standing at a grave and unable to cry? Mario lowered his eyes and his voice became softer. “I felt it, deep inside me. The grief was there, but it didn’t come out. I stood there, in front of my grandfather’s grave, the man who had taught me so much, the man I admired - and I couldn’t cry. Not because I wasn’t sad, but because over the years I had trained myself not to allow myself to feel. I had forbidden myself to be weak, to be vulnerable.” He pressed his lips together, then shook his head slightly. “It was horrible, Amber. And it was that moment when I realized what kind of person I’d become. How empty I actually was.”

“I was different after the break-up. I buried myself in work. And yes, that made me successful. But it also made me lonely. All those years. The only thing that took away my loneliness during that time was my sister and her children. They gave me support and showed me that I wasn’t completely alone. But they live far away and we could only see each other rarely. It wasn’t the same. There was no one left to be by my side every day.”

I swallowed. “And then… you found us.”

Mario nodded slowly. “Then I found Amber. And you shortly afterwards, Nathalie. And I haven’t felt so lonely since then. I have my sister and her children far away - they mean an incredible amount to me and I love them more than anything. But I have you right here with me. And I love you just as much. And every single day I am grateful for the closeness and security you have given me since then. You have brought a warmth back into my life that I no longer thought possible.”

A silence spread, but it was not an uncomfortable silence. It was one in which everything was said - and yet so much was understood.

After a while, Mario paused for a moment before he finally said quietly: “I lived alone for many years. But I’ve never regretted how my life turned out.”

Amber and I looked at him questioningly.

“Ultimately, we are always the sum of all decisions - both those that we have made and those that we have not made. Just like those that were made for us.”

He looked at both of us. “I look around me now and see in my life: a loving sister. Nieces and nephews who love and cherish me. A great, big house. And in it: you two wonderful beings.” His voice softened as his gaze rested on us. “And I’m happy. I wouldn’t want to change anything about my current life.”

Amber and I exchanged a look, then we both put our arms around him.

“We’re happy too”, Amber whispered.

I felt something solidify inside me - a certainty that everything had turned out as it should. And that we were here, at this exact moment, with this exact person, because it was meant to be.

I knew that we belonged together. And that was all that mattered.