I grew up as a reserved girl, who found it difficult to make new acquaintances, even in the yard of my own house. I was too shy, and more often I sat at home and watched other people’s games through the window. That’s how I noticed Frank. He was a little older than me, and my mother, working part-time in the school kitchen, sometimes told me about him.
He grew up with only his grandmother, so he was on welfare and generally got help from the school. Everyone literally prayed that his grandmother would live longer so that the boy could go to university. Frank himself studied so-so, but was an active and cheerful child, loved sports, especially soccer. Once he almost broke our window while he was playing nearby, and then he blushed thickly and uttered a barely audible, “I’m sorry.
Apparently, at my grandmother’s prompting, Frank left school early and enrolled in technical school. He was still around for a while, and then his grandmother was gone. My mother said Frank could still be taken to an orphanage. I don’t know what exactly happened, but he didn’t come home for a very long time.
It had been years. Frank must have graduated, and I got in myself. And he and I bumped into each other quite by chance at a common elective at the university. After technical school, he wanted to get a higher education, and now he was one of the oldest in his class, but he was studying on a budget and diligently. He recognized me and offered to have coffee together and chat.
He didn’t like to talk about his life, as if he was ashamed, but he was always eager to hear my news. More and more often, I hear him sigh and say how sorry he was that we hadn’t been friends before, even though we lived so close. But now we really are almost friends. I catch his prying eyes, and we have coffee together a couple of times a week, and sometimes take the same bus back.
Maybe it’s already obvious, but I like Frank. Strongly and for a long time. I’m afraid to make the first move myself, so as not to scare him off, but what if it’s worth it? What if he is also afraid, thinking that he is not worthy of something because of the failures of his life, and so he waits until I am the first to ask him out?
