I see myself as a reserved person. I don’t go out, I don’t make friends easily and I don’t call people friends just because I know them. It’s an advice I got from my mother. She said, “Just because you know her doesn’t make her your friend. You know her and that’s all. Friendship is deeper.”

There was some truth in that so I carried it along as the gospel.

At the university I had a roommate who was everything that I was not. Benedicta. She liked talking, I didn’t like to talk or be talked to for so long. She liked going out at the times I loved to stay in. She had so many friends, I had none. She mistakenly thought I was her friend just because I was in the same room with her. She was my roommate and that was all. But there was something about Benedicta I found very enchanting.

She’s exactly what she tells you she is, no lies and no flavor. To date, anytime I think of authenticity, I think of her. She won’t tell you A and do B, never. Or she won’t ask you to go where she wouldn’t go with you. She thought me how to be a human in a world where everyone is trying to be a perfect plastic.

One morning I was awakened by this loud noise that sounded like a burst balloon. She was standing by the bed, naked and polishing her nails. I asked her, “What was that?” She said calmly, “I did. It was the sound of my...READ MORE...