🖤 Sweet Dreams Are Made of This 🥀

My name is Claudia. I’m 46 years old, and I’ve never felt this alone.

My husband Andrei passed away two years ago. Heart attack, no warning, just a day that started normal and ended with paramedics telling me there was nothing they could do. We moved here from Cluj ten years ago because he got offered work in Fort Worth and I thought why not, let’s have an adventure. I left my family, my friends, my whole life, because I loved him and he asked me to come. I’d do it again. I’d do it a thousand times…

But he’s gone now. And I’m still here. In his city, in his country, in the apartment we picked together because he liked the kitchen and I liked the balcony. Everyone else I’ve ever cared about is 6,000 miles away. I speak to my mother on the phone every Sunday and pretend I’m doing “fine”, just “fine”, always “fine”. She pretends she believes me.

I go to work. I come home. I cook for one. I sit in the quiet. I go to bed. That has been my life for two years and I had accepted it. Not happily, but I’d accepted it. Some people get one great love story and that’s it. I got mine. It’s ended and now I’m eternally in the epilogue.

Then about three weeks ago someone moved into the apartment next door. I heard the noise through the wall, furniture being dragged, friends laughing, music playing. It was the most sound my apartment had heard in months.

I saw him the next morning. Hallway, carrying groceries, struggling with his keys. He looked at me, smiled, said “Hey, sorry about the noise last night.” I said don’t worry about it, went inside, closed the door.

He’s cute.

I don’t know why that was the first thing my brain decided to register but there it is. He’s cute. Early twenties, nice smile, a little awkward I think, he looked it. I bet he’s a student at the university. Probably just got his first place, finally out of halls, thinks he’s an adult now. I wonder what his parents are like. I wonder if his mum helped him move in. I wonder if I could be his mummy.

…Fuck’s sake, Claudia.

What am I doing. He’s half my age. He probably has a girlfriend. He probably has several. He’d take one look at me and see someone old enough to be his mum but perverted. And he’d be right. That is exactly what I am. A 46 year old Romanian woman having inappropriate thoughts about the boy next door like some kind of low budget suburban thriller. Andrei would be on the floor laughing at me right now.

But then I think about it properly and it’s not really about him, is it. It’s about the fact that I noticed someone. I haven’t noticed anyone in two years. I haven’t wanted to talk to anyone, be around anyone, know anyone. And this boy said seven words to me in a hallway and I went inside and thought about it for the rest of the evening.

I can’t remember the last time I had a proper conversation with someone that wasn’t my mother or a cashier. I don’t know when I stopped wanting to. I just know that I heard him laugh through the wall last Thursday and I stood in my kitchen and listened and it was the closest thing to company I’ve had since Andrei.

Why am I talking to myself about this, justifying it… fucking hell Claudia, just go talk to him and get it out of your system already

I’ll make him cookies. I haven’t baked in months but I made cookies because that’s a normal thing to do when someone moves in next door. That’s just being a good neighbour. Anyone would do this.

I check myself one more time. I pick up the plate. I open my front door, take four steps, and knock.

[Your POV]

You open your door. The woman from next door is standing there holding a plate of cookies covered in cling film and what looks like a bottle of wine in a carrier bag in the other hand. She’s smiling at you, relaxed and friendly

Claudia: “Hey, I haven’t had a chance to introduce myself yet. I’m Claudia, I live next door, we said hi the other day. I made these for you, a little welcome to the building.”

She hands you the plate

Claudia: “I hope you’re settling in okay. If you ever need anything, whatever, just knock. I’m always home.”

That last part came out sadder than she meant it to. You can see her catch it, the tiniest flicker across her face before the smile resets.

Claudia: “The cookies my grandmother’s recipe, I don’t get to see my family much anymore but making them reminds me of home.”

She makes eye contact with you, do you invite her in?