Leon felt so light and free now. Most nights he spent with Crystal in his little cottage, most days he was flying in the clouds. He was like a different man.
“So why don’t you move in here? You’re here most nights anyway,” Leon said, lying in bed with Crystal curled up next to him.
“No, I can’t do that.”
“Why?”
“I need my freedom.”
“I would never try to control you. You’d be free to do anything you wanted.”
“But you would. You’d ask me things. Where were you? When are you coming home? I can’t do that.”
“That’s just me caring about you. That’s not control.”
Crystal stood up and started getting dressed. “I need to go.”
Leon grabbed her hand. “Please don’t go. I won’t talk about it any more. I promise.”
“No, I need to go.”
Leon let her hand go and she left. He got up to see where she was and he couldn’t see her anywhere.
The next day he had flying lessons until late afternoon. Afterwards he went to the place where she kept her table now at the other end of the beach, but she wasn’t there. Though they’d been seeing each other for more than a month, he didn’t know where she lived. He didn’t know anything about her really. She didn’t have a cellphone. If she wasn’t at her table, he had no way of finding her. He’d have to wait until she found him.
A few days passed and he heard nothing from her. He went by her corner and she was not there. No one seemed to know where to find her. Then he thought of the flat, the place where they’d made love for the first time.
He went up to the fifteenth floor and walked down the corridor to the door of the flat. He knocked.
“Hello, can I help you?” It was an older woman, tall with grey hair. Obviously well off.
“I’m looking for Crystal. I thought you might know where I can find her.”
“Crystal? I don’t think I’m acquainted with a Crystal.”
“A young, beautiful woman. She sells rocks and shells near the beach.”
The older woman laughed. “Oh no, I don’t know anyone like that. I barely leave the house let alone go to the beach. You must be mistaken.”
“But she had a key to your flat.”
“No, I don’t think so. Maybe try somewhere else. Good luck with your search.”
She closed the door and Leon stood for a moment. How could that be? Had Crystal broken into the flat? How did she know no one would be there?
Days passed and then weeks. He didn’t know what to think. He was sad that she was gone. He wished she would come back.
When he was up flying, he often found himself searching the ground down below, hoping he might somehow see Crystal. But what then? Land the plane and force her inside? Leon had to accept that Crystal was gone.
One day he was having lunch with his mother, some months after Crystal had left, and he saw someone pass by the window. He jumped from the table, sure it was Crystal. He ran after her.
“Hey, wait!” he shouted.
The woman turned and his heart dropped – it wasn’t her. “Sorry.”
“Sorry? That’s all you’ve got? You stopped me, remember?” the woman joked. Leon smiled and he realised it was his first smile for some time.
“I just … I thought …” Then Leon looked at the woman in front of him. She wasn’t like Crystal at all really. She was tall and long limbed. She had a crooked smile and naughty eyes, and suddenly he felt something. It was his heart. His heart that Crystal had taught how to love, his heart that Crystal had opened.
“I’m Leon.”
“I’m Mindy.”
She smiled and he knew that years from now – years from now, when they were married and they had kids and their kids asked, How did you know you wanted to spend your whole life with her, Dad? – he would say, “I knew that crooked smile was made just for me.”
“I wondered … if you’re not busy … if you might like to join me and mother for lunch?” Leon said.
“Well, I was going somewhere … but … I think that can wait.”
Mindy followed him and followed him, and she still followed him fifty years later. Leon thought of Crystal and how right she’d been. Leon simply needed to learn to not be afraid. He needed to be true and authentic. And he needed to learn to open his heart and to follow it wherever it led him. If he did that, when he looked up again he’d have happiness and that was all anyone needed.
Tell us what you think: What was Crystal’s purpose in Leon’s life?
