JENNIE

A year had gone by since I moved to LA. The transition was smooth, and not really having close friends back home, I started to find them here. Lisa, Jack, John, and Ian were my LA family now, and my parents had visited twice already. My dad and John had so many similarities that they loved spending time together. Fishing was a hobby they both loved dearly, and they could spend whole days out fishing, leaving Mom and Jack to lounge with us.

Mary appeared to be the wisest and funniest person I had ever met. She came to Los Angeles three times, saying that being around younger people made her realize that her heart needed to work for a little while longer, as she still had so many things to do. We were trying to persuade her to move here, to rent a small apartment close to us. She was still thinking about it.

When I first moved here, I spent a lot of time working on the project designing a new product from scratch. It took almost all my time during those first months. From my laptop, I just dropped into Lisa's arms. It was a time of change in my life that inspired me to create.

The app I was working on got released one month later, and it hit the top of the AppStore in a week, bringing attention to the main office. Once they found out the person who created the visuals lived in LA, they invited me for an interview. So, now I was in the process of officially relocating to the LA office.

I loved their policy of remote work. I could go to the office or stay at home as long as I wanted to. The most important thing for them was that I got the job done, and with their system, it was easy to track my progress.

Lisa and I usually didn't see each other in the office on the days we went in. She worked with different people and left me with my new team that was so diverse and interesting I could actually find friends there.

Jack and I started running in the mornings trying to start a good habit but mostly failing spectacularly.

Instead I surfed, oh my, I surfed. Lisa and I spent countless hours on the water, the power of the ocean beating in my veins. I always felt that I needed to live close to the water.

Alex and Christina still hadn't visited. Alex didn't want to leave the baby with a nanny for a long time and did not want to fly with him so far away. But now, it seemed they actually were ready, and they had been discussing dates.

After I broke up with Kai, Alex tried to stay friends with him, but he told me that Kai withdrew. Seeing Alex reminded him of me, Kai had told Alex. So, after a few nights out, Kai said that it was better for him to stop meeting with Alex. Kai confessed it was difficult for him not to ask questions about me.

I never saw Kai after the day I left. We didn't stay in touch. He sent me a feeble happy birthday greeting, and I politely replied. That was all. Alex said that he bumped into Kai in the restaurant a few weeks ago, and he was with a pretty young girl, too young as Alex pointed out, but he looked happy, and she had warm eyes that never left Kai. I hoped he'd found his happiness.

Because I had found mine, Lisa. As the year went by, I realized she was my everything. She was my light, my support, my day, and my night. She worked fiercely to make me feel at home here, and here the puzzle clicked, two souls finding each other.

Living with a woman was so different than living with a man. We talked a lot. We explained our thoughts, fears, and emotions. I memorized every inch of her body and holding her in my arms still made me the happiest person on earth.