That was the last time I held Jisoo to sleep because a month after that night, she moved out of the apartment.

I figured it would happen sooner than later since she stayed with her fiancé the nights prior to her officially moving out. With our college years basically over and us just waiting for our graduation ceremony, there was absolutely no reason left for her to stay.

Roseanne went back to her parents’ place, so I had no choice but to vacate our residence for three and rent this new apartment I found near my workplace.

It took a lot of getting used to, even more than I care to admit. The separation anxiety I experienced was the total worst. As much as I love being alone, it’s extremely lonely not having them around, but I know the distance away from Jisoo was what I needed the most.

But, Jisoo not being physically present didn’t help much either since every time I’m alone with my thoughts, which I mind you is pretty often than not in a place where you stay alone, the thoughts of her plague me.

Fortunately, I have my job to distract myself with which helped a lot to silence my mind; to silence her raspy voice and laugh I randomly sometimes hear; to stop the film of our memories, triggered by the stuff that reminds me of her, from playing over and over in my head.

When I said it’s easy for me to move on, I found out the hard way that she’s an exception because I’ve already cried myself dry for more days and nights than I can count, but the sorrow and pain still remained so I’ve accepted the fact that this isn’t something I can rush; that my heart will take its sweet time to heal.

Six months have passed since I discovered the deep-rooted love I had for Jisoo and I’d like to think I’ve at least made progress.

“Lisa? Lisa! Are you still there?”

I sigh internally when my mum drags me back from my wandering thoughts. She’s never stopped bothering me since I graduated, I just kind of zone out most of the time now.

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“I asked why won’t you just come home?” Every time she calls, she never fails to ask the same damn thing. I’m so tired of it that I can’t stop a grunt from escaping me which pretty much obviously pissed her off. “Lalisa Manoban!”

I flinch at her using my whole name which is an already proven indication that she’s about to go off and she will not stop once she’s started so I put her on mute, mostly for self-care. I have just gotten back, exhausted from a whole day shoot under the scorching sun, so the last thing I need is for her to add more stress to this godforsaken day.

I turn the volume back on after a while and just as I thought, she still hasn’t stopped blabbering. My eyeballs almost pop out of their sockets when I roll my eyes. If any of y’all higher beings is real, now’s the time to prove yourselves. I’m begging.

Someone knocks on my door without delay, which startles me out of my skin and… out of my couch too.

“ that hurts,” I cuss, my bony slumped on the floor.

My mum calms down a bit. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Just fell off the couch,” I say, pushing myself up. “Someone’s at my door. I have to go, mum.”

“Who’s there? Are you expecting someone?”

“Yes, someone from work,” I lie, quickly taking the chance of whoever’s god has blessed me with. “I’ll talk to you later. Love you.”

I drop the call before she can utter another word and I’m sure I’m going to pay for that the next time she calls, but that’s a problem for another time. I walk towards the door with a grateful smile plastered on my face. It’s probably my old lady neighbor, looking for her cat again. I’ve already lost count of the times she has lost “Yogi” since I moved in. It’s annoying most of the time but, right now, I can actually kiss her.

“Hello, Mrs. Ch--”

The person on the other side throws herself at me as soon as I open the door, my neck carrying all of her weight. I don’t know what stones me in place— the surprise of her being the one on the other side of the door or her warmth I’ve deprived myself of that she envelops me with.

“You’re obviously not my neighbor looking for her cat,” I blurt out, still in utter shock. Security is tight around here and people need to be buzzed in before they can go inside the vicinity and I clearly don’t remember doing that for her. “Wait, how exactly did you get in?”

“I helped a nice old lady with her shopping bags by the gate and she probably couldn’t think ill of someone as pretty as I am so she let me in as well,” she answers cheekily, pulling back a bit but her arms are still encircled around my neck. Her face is a little too close for comfort, and my heart goes into overdrive. Oh, nah, … nah.

“What are you doing here, Jisoo? You could’ve messaged me first.”

“For what? So you can turn me down again? I haven’t seen you for months.” Jisoo frowns and I can just stare blankly at her, guilt-ridden. “I don’t want to be that person, but I’m starting to feel like you’re avoiding me.”

Well, she’s not wrong because I was. Believe me when I say I’ve tried my best for everything between us to stay the same at the start because I thought facing my feelings head-on would help me move on faster, but when that apparently didn’t work out and I realized how emotionally and mentally draining it is to pretend as if everything’s okay, I tried a different path to take and that’s me steering clear of seeing her for a while.

She’s been busy with her wedding arrangements and the couple of times she found time and asked me out, I turned her down. While it’s true that I’ve also been busy with work, I actually can manage to squeeze her in if I wanted to.

I pretty much used all the excuse there is to avoid being with her; to elude th