Final
The Way Things WereI can't continue like this.
I am not happy. This was not how things were supposed to turn out.
***
She had a good life. She had a stable, well-paying job and loving parents. So many people were jealous of her life. What else did she even need?
She even had someone she considered her boyfriend. It was pretty much the perfect life. And yet, when she was alone, she felt a sense of emptiness inside her. It was slowly draining her, and there were days when she didn't want to step out of the house or even see her parents and boyfriend.
***
When she was a child, she had had many dreams of how growing up would be like. "I'll get a hot boyfriend and spend all my time with him! It's gonna be so fun," she once told her friend.
Thinking back on it now, she was a really naive child.
However, she didn't want to come to terms with this realisation - that she was desperately unhappy and needed a change in her life. She kept quiet about her thoughts and continued on with life as usual and nobody detected anything amiss.
***
One Saturday afternoon, she was organising her room when she discovered a small notebook with stickers on it. It was her diary from elementary school and she flipped it open to read. The first page was a list of places she wanted to visit, and there were twenty different countries that were all around the world. America, Britain, Japan, France, Australia... She had actually gone to some of those countries already, but the list intrigued her all the same. These were the countries that she had wanted to visit close to ten years ago, and she had forgotten all about them.
She continued flipping through the pages of her diary quietly, and though she seemed peaceful on the surface, her mind was buzzing with thoughts.
When she reached a blank page, she picked up a pen and began to write.
This is what I want to tell you:
It isn't how you thought it would be.
Growing up isn't that fun.
I wish I could go back to elementary school, or at least start everything all over again.
Go somewhere nobody knows me and become a new person.
Am I too selfish for wanting that?
***
Even though she had written those words down, deep inside she knew that she didn't have the heart to actually leave. After all, her whole life had been spent here. Where could she go if she left?
So she continued on with her daily life, and things actually seemed to be going decently.
Then she met up with her boyfriend.
"It's been almost six months, when are we ever going to make things official?" She asked casually, while eating her dinner. The answer that came next was something she had never expected.
"Make things official? Aren't we just friends?" No. No way this was happening now.
She took a deep breath. "Do friends hold each other's hands and cuddle and go out alone so often?" She stared directly at him, unknowingly holding her breath as she waited for his reply.
"Um, yeah... Don't they? I really thought we were just friends."
In retrospect, she shouldn't have been too surprised. He had many friends who were girls, after all. He could have held their hands and cuddled with them too, who knew? Her heart hurt though. She hadn't expected to be just a friend to him.
But she didn't let on about any of her feelings and she merely smiled as she continued eating, the very picture of placidity.
***
Her nights were spent sleepless as she thought about him and wondered why she felt so sad. It didn't seem like the kind of thing that would be so important that she would be so preoccupied by, so why couldn't she just forget it and move on?
After a week, it finally occurred to her. It had mattered so much because when she first met him, she had told herself that she would never fall for him because of the number of girl friends he had, and yet she still fell for him anyway and thought that things would somehow work out between them.
That revelation greatly disturbed her and when lying still became too much, she got up and started to write again.
I pinned too much of my hopes on you.
I expected too much.
But was it me? Was I really the one who thought too highly of what was happening between us?
I really didn't anticipate that in your eyes, we were just friends.
And after that, you told me you weren't sure if you liked another girl.
Are you just dense?
I like you even though I wish I didn't but you don't seem to get my feelings at all.
This is so cliched it's almost hilarious. It would be if it wasn't happening to me.
I shouldn't have spent so much time with you, now everywhere has memories of you and everything hurts.
***
He still didn't seem to understand, and continued to invite her out for dinners and movies.
She rejected every single one of them, claiming that she was tired from work or that she had family matters. He was obviously confused - since when had she been so busy? But he let it slide and they slowly grew apart.
She thought she was getting on fine although she thought of him often, and silently congratulated herself for stopping things as soon as possible.
However, that changed when she saw him with another girl. Holding hands, his arm around her shoulder as she laughed at something he said, basically everything they used to do together. It crushed her and tears began forming in her eyes almost immediately.
Was this how a broken heart felt like?
***
After that, she began making plans.
In Mandarin, the number four sounded similar to death, so she chose it to symbolise the death of the old her.
The fourth country on the list was France.
She decided to leave on the last day of that month, so that she would be her new self when the new month started.
Things were happening rather quickly, but she enjoyed it. It finally felt as though something was happening and she slowly felt herself loving life again.
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