LULA

I recognized her before I read her name.

Her profile appeared on my phone one afternoon when the light in my apartment had begun to turn yellow. The city outside the window started to twinkle and the mountains turned black. The recognition came instantly, before logic had time to intervene. University. Years ago. A long corridor. Her presence that never demanded attention but always held it.

She still looked the same. Pale skin. A small mouth. Wide eyes that stayed open a fraction longer than most people’s, as if she were listening past the moment. She reminded me of Betty Boop in a way that would sound foolish to explain, but felt unmistakable once seen.

I wrote her name.

There was a pause.

Then she asked who I was.

I gave her my full name. Not shortened. Not casual. The long one. The pause stretched longer this time. Then came her reply—surprised, almost warm.

She remembered.

Back at university, I had hovered near her without moving closer. We had gone to her house once. I liked her, but not urgently enough to disrupt the order of things. Not enough to accept the consequences of wanting more. It wasn’t indifference. It was hesitation. Lula didn’t invite pursuit. She required certainty, and I didn’t have it then.

Conversation with her had always been sparse, but never uncomfortable. She didn’t fill space with words; she filled it with attention. When she looked at you, she looked fully. Silence around her wasn’t empty—it felt occupied.

That hadn’t changed.

When I suggested we meet, she didn’t hesitate.

Today, she said.

She lived very close. Close enough that the drive felt shorter than the decision to go..

Her house was already full.

Her daughter—a university student—was there with friends. They studied something creative. They occupied the living room and dining room completely. Not loudly. Completely. There was an unspoken boundary in place.

Lula noticed it at the same time I did.

There was nowhere for us to be except her bedroom.

We sat on the edge of the bed with sodas in our hands, talking quietly while the rest of the house existed just beyond the door. It wasn’t intimacy. It was containment. A space borrowed out of necessity rather than choice. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable, but the situation was.

After a few minutes, I suggested we go to my place.

She agreed.

At my apartment, the city staged the conversation. A carpet of lights stretched beyond the windows in uneven patterns—a spectacular view from the twenty-second floor. I dimmed the room slightly—not to create atmosphere, but to give the view more room. Lula asked if something was wrong with the lights. I told her I just wanted to see the city better. She watched me for a moment, then nodded with her eyes.

Things moved quickly after that. Not rushed—just slowly unresisted.

I leaned in; she backed away. Then she reached for the back of my neck and began to caress it. Soon we became intimate, with a quiet clarity that matched everything else about her. And just as easily, we were seeing each other—eventually dating, or something close enough to accept the name.

Lula didn’t talk much. I did most of the speaking. I told her stories. I told her things I rarely said out loud. She listened without interruption, without anticipation. When I finished, she didn’t rush to respond. Her eyes did most of it for her.

When she laughed, it came through them first. The mouth followed later, almost reluctantly. I told her she looked beautiful when she laughed—not because it was rare, but because it felt earned.

When she kissed, there was nothing tentative about her.

She kissed with certainty. When I leaned in, she met me fully. When I tried to pull back, her hand came up behind my neck and brought me back without force. Just decision. I tried again, and again she refused the exit. We stayed there long enough for thought to dissolve. Long enough for the world to narrow to sensation alone.

One night, I exaggerated her name, raising my voice playfully.

She stopped and looked at me.

“Don’t raise your voice at me,” she said.

I laughed and told her I was joking.

“Not even as a joke,” she replied.

She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t need to. The boundary was clean and immovable. I respected it immediately. That was the closest I ever saw her to anger.

She had a small dog. Her bedroom opened directly onto a yard, and the dog moved freely between inside and out, carrying sand with it. The sand settled everywhere, including the bed. The first time I noticed, I asked about it. She said it was the dog. The explanation satisfied her completely.

Lula didn’t drive, so I always did.

One evening at my place, we were watching a movie, eating cheese crackers, enjoying the quiet comfort of doing nothing. Suddenly she said she wanted to go home.

I asked if she was okay.

She said no.

I offered to drive her. She looked at me as if I’d done something unexpectedly kind.

“You’re such a gentleman,” she said.

I wasn’t sure what she had expected instead.

Two months in, she came over on a weekday. The timing felt wrong immediately. I told her it was good to see her—unless she was bringing bad news.

She was.

Her ex had called. Someone she’d been with for two years. She told me she liked him more than she liked me. Not loved. Just liked. The word didn’t hurt so much as it unsettled me. It felt small, but final.

I tried to argue briefly. Then stopped.

She leaned in to kiss me. I stepped back.

She looked genuinely surprised.

“Are you kicking me out?” she asked.

“Maybe,” I said.

She told me I was afraid of being alone. That this was my problem, not hers. Then she handed me a small pack of M&M’s she’d brought and left.

I stood there holding candy, trying to understand how something so quiet could end so abruptly.

The next day, I went to her place. Not to convince her—just to understand.

She told me she wasn’t seeing him again. That she wasn’t going to call him.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Why should I?” she said.

We kissed again. The same way. Her hand behind my neck. No hesitation. No exit. Time passed without discussion.

When we stopped, I told her that this—this alone—should be proof enough that she liked me.

She said she needed more time.

“How much?” I asked.

“A month or two,” she said. “Maybe more.”

That was the closest she ever came to a promise.

After a couple of weeks, I called her and asked about her ex-boyfriend. She said he had come over for lunch. I remember thinking that she had never invited me to lunch or dinner, and it hurt.

When I think of Lula now, I don’t think about how little she spoke.

I think about how completely she listened.
How silence, with her, was never empty.
How closeness didn’t need explanation.

It was the quietest relationship I’ve ever had—
one where nothing was forced,
nothing was rushed,

and even the goodbye arrived without raising its voice,

leaving candy behind.

Juan Pablo Gutierrez writes fiction that explores personal evolution through relationships. His stories examine how dialogue, closeness, and shared moments guide emotional development. He is interested in how people grow by engaging deeply with one another. He lives in Santiago, Chile.