Paula Brukmüller - Flowers from Greece - The Autobiography of the Journalist Who Turned a Personal Tragedy into an Inspiring World Tour

Lots of talk and a few shots later, Juan was staring at me without any shame. Even so, I thought it was best to ask someone under less influence of alcohol.

- Darling, help me make sure if this Spanish is hitting on me or on Kate – I approached Flávia, between empty bottles on the table.

- Even the singer may have noticed that he is all over you. Only Kate doesn’t see it, or pretends not to, – she said matter-of-factly.

I was definitely not willing to let things go in the same direction as the night we met the Argentinans. We struggled to split the bill among all members on the table. And whenever Kate counted the bills, the sum went wrong. While everyone was trying to agree on our next stop, I got up and went to the restroom. On my way back, instead of taking my seat, I called Juan into the bar and avoided paying attention to everyone’s eyes, especially Kate’s. Inside, I was more than direct:

- Why do you look at me so much?

- Because you are so beautiful – he replied, sceptical of my attitude.

- Can I kiss you? I asked with a frightening self-confidence even I found hard to believe. Juan’s response was to pull me by the hand and kiss me hard.

When we got back to the table, holding hands, everyone knew what had happened, since from our table it was possible to see everything that happened inside the bar. Besides, we made no point in hiding it. Kate tried to mask her irritation with a smile, but I could feel how she condemned me with her eyes.

My head was throbbing and I was feeling sick to my stomach because of the hangover. Two pieces of toast, scrambled eggs, and a cup of unsweetened black coffee seemed like a good idea to aid my recovery, while Flavia told me her perceptions of my attitude the night before.

Kate arrived from the Spanish hostel with her eyes smudged and her hair in a clumsy bun on the top of her head.

- You forgot something last night, – she said, throwing a black lycra panties on the table. Then she turned her back and went into the bedroom without saying good morning.

Flavia looked at me in amazement trying to control the laughter that was about to echo through the bar.

The night before, Kate and the boys broke into the three-bunk room just when Juan was slipping my underwear under the creped skirt I was wearing. No one could see us because we were on the last bed near the wall. Still, I was so embarrassed that I was ashamed to look for my panties in front of everyone and immediately left wearing nothing underneath.

Later, I found Kate fiddling with her cell phone, alone in the hostel bar.

- I imagine you’re upset that I made out with Juan last night. I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong, but if it’s important to you that I apologize, I will. – I spoke without sitting next to her.

- You can be with anyone you want, Paula. I just didn’t expect you to take him away when he was by my side and kiss him in front of everyone, – she said, her voice low, not meeting my eyes.

- Kate – I sat putting my hand on her arm to catch her attention – Juan and I were looking at each other from the time we met, but you completely ignored that. I just don’t want us to get angry over some guy that means nothing to either of us.

Kate listened to me quietly but finally admitted:

- You’re right. If I advocate that women should be free and do what they want, I can’t criticize you for that. Besides, you’re right, he’s just a guy we met at a bar, not worth a fight. – She smiled, taking a more relaxed posture.

Flavia and I were about the same age, but we were very different in the way we reacted to things and, in a way, similar in the way we felt the world. We’ve had long conversations daily after school. In the days we spent together in Bangkok, I told Flavia almost my whole life and she also shared hers with me.

Failed relationships, follies of love, abuse, rejection. On her last night in Bangkok, before leaving for Vietnam, Flavia confessed to me some very deep and guilty pains she has carried with her about an abusive relationship she had lived in the past. Listening to those pains, I was sure that the biggest challenge for human beings is to forgive themselves.

Sitting on the brown leather couch at our room, still a little hangover from the Nana Plaza night out, I listened to Flávia telling me about what she thought was a mistake made during such an abusive relationship. A mistake that caused her a huge blame. Although I changed her name here in the book, out of respect, I won’t say what it is about. Most importantly, on that muggy, humid night, under the noise of the non-working air conditioner, I could feel Flavia’s guilt weighing heavily in my heart.

I listened attentively to the whole story and even the way she regretted not having found the support she was expecting from the people she trusted. I wanted to find the words that would take that pain out of her soul immediately, because for me it was so clear she should not bear such blame. So, I asked myself what was the hardest forgiveness I had ever given myself, and how I had come to it.

It didn’t take too much thinking. Felipe immediately popped into my mind, and I was fully convinced that he was already forgiven.

- Flavia, every human being on this planet is doing the best they can, all the time. Accept that back in time, when you made that choice, you were doing the best you could, within the level of awareness you had at that moment. You could not have acted otherwise. And more than that, you did it for your own sake. You were trying to protect yourself. Seek out the lesson this brought you and leave that blame behind.

She responded only with a monosyllable and spent a few minutes staring at the floor and certainly trying to digest what I had said. Meanwhile, my mind made an insane kamikaze at my own words. Like a tunnel light, I saw Felipe looking at me in my mind, in the middle of that room in Rio de Janeiro, in the afternoon of a stuffy Monday. I could almost smell the soda on my hands as he rehearsed the words to reveal what deep down I already knew.

It was for love. He loved me. He recognized all the sacrifices I have made in my life to follow him. He was aware of all that I had just given up, once again, to move with him to another state. He saw me mourn the deaths of four babies. He loved me too much just to have the courage to look into my eyes and say he didn’t want me by his side anymore. He loved me too much to simply tell me that for no special reason he was no longer happy with me.

Besides, not wanting to be with me anymore was a right he had. I finally realized how painful it was for him to “dump” me after everything I’ve done for him, for us. That was the way out he found, causing me pain I couldn’t bear again, so I’d make the decision he didn’t have the courage to make. Maybe he even thought it would be easier for me if I was angry at him.

In a matter of seconds, as it all lit up inside my head, tears threatened to burst into my eyes at any moment and I ran to the bathroom. Good thing Flavia was lost in her own thoughts and didn’t see my watery eyes.

I cried while sitting on the toilet, tears of hurt and pain that I didn’t know still existed inside me. There, in that dirty, hot bathroom of a poor school on the outskirts of Bangkok, I believed I made peace with Felipe and the story about the end of my marriage.

I don’t know if this was Felipe’s truth, I never asked. I only know that this was the acceptance I gave to my own truth.

My friend Flavia left the next morning, and I felt indebted, because I was the one who had won the most from that conversation.