Photo:500x500 mm, Text:350x250 mm
Michelle


Michelle is named after a very beautiful girl from Amsterdam. She was tall and had long blond hair. Dimples appeared when she smiled. She played football and World of Warcraft – the best player I've ever known. I loved her a lot.

When I got to know her for the first time, she was fourteen years old. That was six years ago; now she's turning twenty. Michelle would always come to play with me when I asked her. At that time, I still had six computers in my house. My house was like a meeting place for gamers. But I never invited her to come at my house. She was only fourteen.
When I died, she was the one who always gave me my life back. She was a black panther – she liked to be hidden, to become a part of the landscape. I was walking with Michelle somewhere in a forest, and suddenly three or four people attacked me, so I started killing them. I died, but Michelle kept me alive. She was standing behind the tree, took me there and healed me. She did that many, many, many times.

Because of Michelle, I won battles.

When she was fifteen and eleven months, she sent me her pictures and kept asking me to send mine too. But I told her that I didn't want to. I told her, “ You don't need a photo because I look exactly the same as I look in the game.” Because there, I am an ugly dwarf – fat and no hair, so she wouldn't need my picture. She also asked me if she could come and stay at my place. So I told her, I was already in love with her at that time. I loved her and therefore, I kept my distance. I knew she wouldn't be happy with me.

When she was sixteen, she had her first boyfriend. She told me that she loved him but was always worried that he was not as serious as she was. I told her that I would end their relationship.
One day, I visited her father's house to repair her computer. It was first time that I met Michelle. She was in bed, sick.
We talked about the cartoon series Avatar that she was watching at that time. She was really, really attractive. I was paralyzed.

When she was eighteen, she had her second boyfriend and went to live with him.
I compared myself to her boyfriend or her classmates who loved Michelle and I thought: What do they know about Michelle? I know her personality in depth. She told me everything that she wouldn't tell anybody else – her worries, problems and secrets. I was always giving her advice to make sure that she wouldn't meet bad people, and that she wouldn't be sad. She listened to me. I was like her father, her brother and her best friend. I had most contact with her when she was fourteen to seventeen – in the most important period in her life, when a girl becomes a woman.
The secrets that Michelle and I shared – they will never know. When your love is real, you shouldn't be too near to somebody.
After two years, she was gone. I was hurt a lot.

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