Bubbles Form & Pop

How long has it been? 3 years, 8 months and 2 days? I trace along the edges of the invitation. It is sweet. Really it is. The pink, similar to you, is overbearing and definitely outstanding. My finger gazes over the little stickers of butterflies. It has to be your insistence that it is there. He has never been one to appreciate this side of the you.

Still when I saw him for the first time a year and a half ago, I guess you saw something. Something that my vision will never capture. We parted as friends. Ticking the box of irreconcilable difference, I was the one that drove us to the point of no return. I placed your card of happiness on the cold glass of my coffee table. 

A sigh had to come up. I mean it wasn’t like I wasn’t expecting the wedding bells being rung at my face. After all, you always envisioned wedding bells in your future. While I, on the other hand, only saw that future me grinding my teeth as the wedding bells chimes. I smile weakly. 

So the future is now? 

Just then the keys turned, the click of the lock being unlock and there she stood. ‘Unnie ah, did you’ she roughly pulled out her boots. When she looked up, initially to finish her sentence, now with widen eyes she strides over and pick up the card. ‘!’ I heard the doe eye silently swear at. 

‘Language.’ It was reflex reaction more than a consciously selected responds. ‘Sorry.’ She scrunched her face together. Scooting me over, she sat down beside me. Doing all these while holding the celebration’s open door. ‘I...’ I pat her thigh. ‘I’m fine.’ My sweet junior’s concern was felt and appreciated. 

‘That is what you always say.’ She pouted at the end. ‘I will be. It just takes time.’ I noted that as time goes by, this facade of I’m fine is slowly cracking. I was dumb to get a roommate, then get drunk and blabber all of love lost by the next shot. Ah curse the drive away on the 31st of December. 

However, it was inevitable, wasn’t it? I mean how can we stay beside each other forever if we aren’t even approaching the same road? Yea, we did clear hurdles with our hands clasped together but there is a limit to everything. There is only a certain distance that our hands can stretch while being connected. 

I look down at my hands. I have to admit, with this small hands, the expiry date of us could never have reach ‘till death do us part’.  ‘Are you going?’ Am I? Our confused eyes stare at each other. ‘You know I.’ I watch as her saliva travelled uneasily down her slender throat. 

Shoot. 

I heaved a quick sigh and abruptly stood up. ‘I know. I’ll go make pasta.’ Her jaw dropped. I smiled and hurried into the kitchen. ‘Unnie!’ She calls out to me. I turn my deaf ear towards her. 

Yet I still hear those footsteps leading her towards me. I close my eyes, cursing at how much I hate non working days. One would think being a radio deejay, vocal trainer and an occasional singer again would take up every single day in my life. My head drops in defeat. Why didn’t it? 

Her slightly bigger hands clenched around my shoulders. ‘Let go.’ Even my feigning of innocences is failing me. ‘Just let it all go. If the past resides, no future can be evident. Not even the now can be excluded from the quicksand you willingly submerge in. Unnie...’ She gently turns me around. ‘I’m here.’ 

My tilted head. Her piercing eyes. The overwhelming underline meaning that I’ve been avoiding. Tension of the awaken truth threatening to expose my cowardice. We stayed like this. Her eyes beginning to be watery. 

‘Yes you are. Now go help me take the pasta sauce from the upper cabinet.’ She lifts up her head. I’m so sorry. I said in my head. I wish telepathy did exist. Her eyes meets mine again. Her smile weaker than normal. She nods her head. To lift up the mood for my sake, she playfully ruffles my hair. ‘Shortie.’ 

Including myself to the act of normalcy, ‘Yah, I’m your Unnie!’ She turns around and sticks out her tongue. I ran towards her. Had to jump a little to mess her hair. Dinner was made with laughter, eaten with a greater amount of laughter. With that, the bubble of us remain intact. 

The only difference is that, on the cold glass coffee table laid a pink card inviting me to my personal hell on earth.