The One-Sided Story of the One-Sided Girl

This is a one-sided story of a one-sided girl, living a one-sided life, and awaiting a one-sided death. Nobody knows she is one-sided. To them, to the world, she is Leah – just another pretty brunette who looks and talks like a million others. If only it were true, though.

Being average, being anything but out-of-the-ordinary had always scared Leah. Yet sometimes, she stares into the darkness of night and fantasizes about fitting perfectly into either one of the available predefined templates. How normal her life would be, how healthy. But for Leah, there are no two sides to the story. The number “one” had always controlled her life, leaving no room for a two to follow. She is who she is. A one-sided girl, a young one-sided woman, with wishes and disappointments beyond her years. A one-sided girl who only had one parent, who only had one home, who speaks only one language. A one-sided woman, who only has one real friend, who only ever had one real dream, who only wants to love one person. And though she had loved more than one, and though she had loved many, none of them had ever loved her back. From her side, she would have given them her all. From their side, they had given her nothing. Leah she was, and Leah she shall remain. A one-sided girl in a two-sided world, to which she could never belong. But the story doesn’t end here. In fact, here is where it begins.

You see, on a rainy day, just two weeks ago, Leah made her way to work. As she got off her usual bus at her usual station, she slipped and fell down. A hand reached out to her, offering help. She accepted. Back on her feet, Leah saw the owner of the hands—a young man with a shy smile. “Are you alright, Leah?” he asked. “Yes, thanks, I am. But how do you know my name?” Leah looked at him puzzled. “Because we have been working together on the same floor for three years now,” the man answered. He looked at her as if she were the most important person in the world. Suddenly, Leah realized, that she, who had never acknowledged this man’s existence before, is the second side to his one-sided story. She smiled at him and asked him for his name.