Swimming in the Dark

by Tomasz Jedrowski

Did you ever have someone like that, someone that you loved in vain when you were younger? Did you ever feel something like my shame? I always assumed that you must have, that you can’t possibly have gone through life as carelessly as you made out. But now I begin to think that not everyone suffers in the same way; that not everyone, in fact, suffers. Not from the same things, at any rate. And in a way this is what made us possible, you and me.

There was something about the way you looked at me that made me feel as if you didn’t judge. There are only so many people we meet in life who give us that feeling.