My dear friend, I am infinitely grateful to have found you and to know that I can always be absolutely sincere with you, telling you all about my life experiences and my perception of them, and always count on receiving truly empathetic feedback. That’s why I have always felt relaxed and uninhibited with you, in the way only close friends can be. And I have missed it all so much: your non-judgemental attitude, the laughs that we shared, the very special bond that, as I feel, we have always had. You are a gem of a person, and I love you endlessly. May you be as happy in life as our friendship and interactions make me.
P.S.: By the way, I need to mention that your eyes are actually darker than your fair hair. The lighting at Chocolate must have played a trick on me… It’s as if some higher power was at play, orchestrating our meeting and making sure that we truly noticed each other. It's a memory that always brings a smile to my face.=)
Chapter 9. My Tender Knight
Coming to a volunteer camp in your homeland, I was really excited to be back there and also to meet new people with whom I would spend the next few weeks, working and living side by side. Initially, I wasn’t supposed to come to this particular camp, but the other camp that I had chosen got canceled at the last minute. Since I had been to this one before, the organizers gave me this place as an option, which I gladly took because I had absolutely loved it the first time around.
So there I was, standing in the courtyard of our guesthouse, basking in July’s warmth and sunshine and taking in everything around me, which I never thought I would see or experience again: the stone house, the kitchen, the spacious common room, the big gates, the outdoor dining area, and the serenity of the surrounding countryside. I was filled with anticipation to go to the work site and see how what we had built the previous year looked now. I couldn’t contain my excitement to share everything I knew and remembered about the place with someone in the new group. Discovering that you were one of our supervisors, I decided to turn to you.
Honestly, at first, I was rather hesitant about approaching you. I had never seen anyone with a stripe of spiky hair on their head in real life before; combined with a black T-shirt and a pair of jeans in the middle of a hot summer, you seemed rather tough to me. However, when I gathered enough courage and talked to you, I was immediately disarmed by your warm smile and enormous gentleness.