A/N: NOT YET CHECKED FOR GRAMMAR!! This is literally a first draft lmao i'm sorry guys...

But I really want to post this today because well... i want to start the year in a journey of healing because... as I quote "I mean, is anything real before you write it? You eat it out, you it out, and then, and only then, is it real for you." (Haunting of Hill House aka the best tv series out there)

I need to say, all of these things vvvv down there, to myself and to the world before I can even think of letting go. 

SOOOOO enjoy this nonsensical ramble of a hopeless romantic! Hope you enjoy it and learn that you're not alone in your pain. 

 

---

 

She asked me a few months before.

 

I said yes, without hesitation. Without fear. Without any ounce of panic and pain showing up onto my face even if inside, it felt as if my stomach has just ruptured and bathed my organs in flesh melting acid.

 

I melted, that’s true. My body, sagging into a hunch. My smile, my expression, softening into something far too kind. Far too accepting, far more than I ever could produce in any other situation. And my tears. Melted. Down my face. As I said yes, yes, yes of course.

 

Of course, I’d love to be your maid of honour.

 

_

 

She asked me to accompany her on weekend venue scoutings. I said yes.

 

She asked me to help pick out colour palettes. I said yes.

 

She asked me to go on catering tastings. I said yes.

 

Dress hunting? Yes.

 

Souvenir shopping? Of course.

 

Shoes, jewelries, curtains, MCs, bands, seating arrangement. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

 

Afterwards, she would always take me out to dinner, without fail. The least I could do to thank you, she said. And again, as always, I said yes to that. Even when I knew he’d always be there to join us. Eventually.

 

“The big boss is here!” She’d exclaim when he approached our table. All in good jest, of course. He would then lean down and kiss her sweetly on her lips, and I had to squeeze the hem of my skirt to stop myself from turning my amiable smile into a jealous grimace.

 

Nice. Nice. Nice. He’s too nice. Quiet and accommodating and supportive and firm. With a touch of nonsensical humour and a taste for the old that would come to surface everytime we’d give him the option of something clean and modern or grand and romantic. He’d jokingly thank me for being there through the wedding planning as our tastes are so similar it won’t be any different if it was me or him picking out the bouquet arrangement.

 

I told him no worries, with a light laughter. The job of a big boss is only to lend us his credit card.

 

She could have stood for you on the day itself and nobody would’ve noticed. Irene said. And to that he added, you wish!

 

I wish. It should be me who wished for it.

 

Even our heights are similar. I quickly jumped back into the conversation before it was too late. Before my silence spanned for too long and they caught onto my hesitation like hawks on a dying rabbit.

 

Irene laughed, of course. Politely but still so sincere.

 

He, like me, smiled in a way so solemn we nearly looked bashful.

 

_

 

People say that we will inevitably date people that look or act like our parents. I, of course am different. She laughed, and her eyes turned into two downturned half moons. Her lips were glistening under the flickering candle lights from how often she nervously them in the span of her bachelorette speech, and the sweetly bitter white wine she so carefully cradled within her shivering palms.

 

She looked at me, in the pause of her speech, and I, almost on instinct, reached out to hold one of her clammy palms within mine.

 

I inevitably ended up marrying someone so like my best friend it's unfair.

 

Why? Because it makes you feel as if you've spurned me? I was so far ahead in the drunken spectrum I couldn't care less how my words sounded beyond my wispy, distorted mind. It didn't matter anyway. Nobody knew.

 

And nobody would. Everyone laughed at my half joke before hushing up to let Irene continue her speech.

 

No. Because I ended up having two people as my bestest friends. How lucky am I?

 

Very. I smiled, raised my glass when she asked for a cheer, and downed the content in one go.

 

Nobody ever needs to know.

 

_

 

He knew. He knew I knew. He knew I knew he knew.

 

Ad infinitum.

 

I took Irene home that night, that morning. The sky was already the colour of her sapphire earrings at midnight when we ambled ourselves out of the taxi and yet he still answered the door a mere five heartbeats after I rang the bell.

 

She stood leaning on me, practically hanging to me with her dear life and I had to pry her fingers away from my shoulders so I could hand her over to the one who she rightfully belonged to. In the eyes of the law, in the eyes of society.

 

Had fun? He asked, with genuine air of warmth around him. Like he genuinely liked me as a person who's been taking care of his future wife when he couldn't. Genuinely liked me as a friend.

 

Way too much. While me, I could only breathe out my answer as the high dose of alcohol had successfully roused the part of my brain I thought I'd beaten to submission since the moment I stepped my feet onto the realm of well-functioning adults.

 

Exhaustion. Exhaustion so potent I felt like crying. The little ounce of rebellious spunk left inside my rotted heart that drove me to nearly throw my heavy bottomed whisky glass against the tall, grandiose ceiling-height mirror inside the restaurant's bathroom as I saw my reflection, and saw nothing but a ghost of a smiling wench.

 

How awful of me to to still, after all this time, hope. Nurse it like a dying houseplant that just won't die out no matter how roughly you treat it. How evil of me to wish for pain at this time of joy and festivities. Her pain. His pain. Mine, even. Amplify it to such an extent that I would gather in me courage to finally run away from her as if she's patient zero to a newly found influenza strain. Where I'll finally gather in me the will to lay down on the earth, and cry myself to sleep as fever overtook me together with the roots from the trees at the deepest spot in my community garden.

 

Instead I took another deep swig of my drink and walked out of the toilet. Walked out of the restaurant. Out of the taxi and into the porch of her house. Their house.

 

Good night, Captain Sparrow, I said, patting her back with choked up laughter. My tears were pushing against the back of my eyes, from the torturous hours I spent playing as a circus monkey, a happy, loyal best friend of the bride, and it hurt to even keep them open in something wider than a squint.

 

It was then very cruel of Irene to push herself away from him, where she stumbled down the three stubby stairs of her front walkway blindly back into my arms.

 

She slipped, nearly. Her knees were only centimeters away from the graveled path when I took her in by her waist and practically hoisted her up into the air. An act of pure strength only possible due to my own intoxication. She slipped, nearly, away from my hold from how her velveteen dress was slinking and running away from my satin sleeves. Irene sunk her nails into the back of my neck and whispered, so, so softly,

 

I love you.

 

Her nails dug so deep into my skin and it pained me. Pained me so.

 

I love you so much, Wendy. You know that, right?

 

Right?

 

There must be blood. Because her fingers were warm, and damp, when she cupped my cheeks before giving them a sloppy kiss perfectly on brand with her current condition. Drunken and sweet.

 

All right, time to sleep, bungo.

 

He said it with his usual smile, his usual air of easy charm that should have dispersed the dreadful heaviness emanating out from my very core. But his eyes.

 

His eyes looked into mine, into mine who were leaking out a waterfall of uncontrollable emotion and he knew.

 

He knew.

 

He knew that I knew that he knew.

 

It would've been better if he sneered at me. In disgust. In hatred. In jealousy, anything. Throw me away to the street and told me to never, ever dare to come back.

 

No. Worse, he gave me an understanding smile.

 

But of course. Why should he ever felt jealousy to a cretin like me? He knew what kind of love Irene has for me, and what kind of love she reserved for him.

 

A love that gives you a deep, romantic kiss on your mouth. Love that gives you warmth to help you fall asleep at night and greet you the next morning. Love, given from her fingers, her hand, and tongue and legs and arms all tangled with yours in passion and vulnerability as she gave everything to you and allowed herself to take everything of you in return.

 

I could never have that.

 

What I could have was a drunken, platonic love confession in the crack of dawn and her breath, dry and hot, seeping through the back of my dress which has grown heavy and disgusting from the cumulation of my sweat.

 

And his eyes, looking into mine. A nod. And a smile of understanding. Comrade in arms. Of course, there was a little bit of pity in them. Of course. He, the chosen commander. Her right hand man. And me.

 

A lady in waiting forgotten by history.

 

_

 

(I never wanted that either. Never wanted what they have.

 

What I want is her hand for me to hold and her smile that awaits.

 

What I want is her. Beside me. Forever. To love.

 

I guess, in extent, I already have my wish granted. So I have no right to file a complaint, right?

 

Right.)

 

_

 

She asked me to sing in her reception.

 

For the dinner procession. Please, pleaseee! She begged with her hands clasped so hard together her knuckles turned white.

 

You know I haven’t sung in years, I told her.

 

I know you do.

 

How.

 

I listen.

 

She does. She did. But will she?

 

I sighed my defeat. In one condition, I finally said. And the smile she produced was so bright I could feel another familiar yet foreign feeling of pressure growing at the back of my throat. I pick the song.

 

Of course! Of course you can.

 

And what if I pick All Star by Smash Mouth?

 

She laughed at that. Her head thrown freely, exposing her neck. Long, slender, pristine, contrasted by how her unbound hair cascaded down her back in a stream of midnight black. It took everything in me not to indulge in my fantasies and run my fingers through it.

 

Then I know I’ve chosen the right person to be my best friend.

 

_

 

Have I told you that Irene went through years of separation with her fiancé? Long distance relationship. Miscommunication. Unhealed wounds cut open with him, hoping that it could be made better by throwing and pissing on it.

 

Who did she ran to in that period of time? Me.

 

Who took my words, their meanings, the tears that accompanied them, and the philosophies away from my weak, gangrenous hands? Her.

 

She took everything away from me. My heart, yes. My favourite line from my all time favourite book? Yes. But my suffering too.

 

All this time I thought, ah. I suffer. I suffer alone. The joy to be someone who unknowingly suffer for the benefit of their partner. How noble.

 

But one night she told me of how she wanted to be selfish and confronted him, tell him how she feels so he could, at the very least, feel the same pain that she felt.

 

I was planning to confess to her, for the longest time, exactly on the basis of that.

 

To make her suffer as much as me.

 

But hearing my words, flowing out of , just as her tears flowed down her eyes that blazed in that unmistakable fire of passioned anguish, I decided that I could never win.

 

Not in love, and not in pain. Not even my pain could hurt her as much as his did.

 

Not even my happiness could make her feel warmth as when he listened, and apologised, and promised to return to her. No matter how long or how arduous the process might be.

 

I sat there when she made the phone call. Encouraging her as a silent conductor with such calmness I could see the top of my head from my position, stuck on her bedroom’s ceiling. Dissociation is a powerful drug, you know?

 

Ah but that’s child’s play. Want to know what true pain is? When she said, when she was stuck within the deepest mood crux she ever stayed in during her dark days, that she felt like nobody ever loved her for who she is. That she felt like she’s unworthy of a simple, unconditional love.

 

Know how much those words hurt me? My chest contracted, my heart skipped a beat. Two. Three. I had to cough to get it back to its normal rhythm.

 

Know how much she hurt me? I consoled her through my minor cardiac mishap. Told her no, that he loves her. Loves her too much that it gave him strength to lie. Of course he loves you. He cares for you. He cares too much that he couldn’t bear the thought of not truly, completely being there with you.

 

She thanked me. And made the phone call.

 

Know how much she hurt me? Not enough.

 

I was still able to fool myself into thinking that I loved her unconditionally enough to say yes.

 

_

 

Let summer never end, let him never go away, let the music on perpetual replay play forever, I’m asking for very little and I swear I’ll ask for nothing more.

 

When I read that, in the past, I think of you. It’s a sentence that conveyed my simple wish.

 

Now, when I read that, I still think of you. I think of how you will read those lines, and felt pain spreading within my chest, just like how it must’ve spread in yours. It’s now a sentence that conveyed your truth.

 

I can imagine, you. I can see, you, lying beside him, on the night before he went away. Your fingers raking through his hair, pain, longing, mixing together with the tears that stained your trembling hands. And I heard your thought that went just like so. A simple wish that became your reality.

 

I can never beat that. I can never top the experience, the emotion you felt as you thought of that line, my favourite line, from our favourite book. Romantic anguish and innocent friendship. Who’ll win? Most might say friendship, because it’s more everlasting than the violent flashbang of a fleeting romantic affair.

 

But who remembers their friend when they’re in love?

 

Not you, that I knew.

 

I wished for this sentence to be ours.

 

And the cruel thing was, it came true.

 

_

 

I sang the song. I did.

 

Picked a real nice song for her. A perfect balance of inside joke and a genuinely beautiful song appropriate for a wedding.

 

I sat in the green room with trembling legs and hands so cold I couldn’t feel their grip around the microphone that at one moment during that night was traned into a block of lead, apparently.

 

“Nervous?” The guitarist of the band asked me. His voice sounded like he was trying to talk to me underwater. Both distant and close, echoing around me like the heavy smoke of his cigarette.

 

I just chuckled and motioned for him to help me get the complimentary glass of water from the service table beside him.

 

“I have something better for you,” he said, before disappearing behind the double door leading into the main wedding hall. When he came back, he had two glasses of whiskey on the rocks. I’ve never felt more grateful to a stranger than on that very moment.

 

“First time singing to a crowd?” He asked after sipping on his drink. He chuckled when he saw me down it all in one big gulp.

 

“Yeah.” I lied.

 

Because telling a stranger that you used to be a small time idol in your teenage years would take way too much time, won’t it?

 

“Break a leg, then,” he said as he gave my back a firm slap when the panicked event organiser lady popped her head into the green room and told us to get ready for our song.

 

I wish.

 

So I walked out there, and sang her a song. A really good song. Looked her right in the eye as I did it.

 

Because it’s for her, the song. Not for anyone else. Not for the enjoyment of the guests, not even as a goodwill for him, your husband. Just for her.

 

I thought, because you’ve never noticed, I can do this.

 

I can sing a song about love, about the promise of a forever, to your face, now, and you’ll only think of it as a simple gift.

 

I thought, if I use this as a way to fool myself into thinking it as a confession, I would be able to let you go.

 

I never wanted her to notice anything, not that night. Especially not that night.

 

But I guess, my life as a small fish professional singer really did come back and bite me in the on the worst possible moment because two-thirds into the song her smile, which before beamed so brightly in sheer joyfulness, began to falter.

 

She looked at me, as a person, as a friend, not as a performer, and then at him. And then back at me. And then back at him, who kept his gaze on the half eaten dinner plate in front of him because… maybe he was being merciful? Or he was being graceful (because god dammit, he won, that’s the least he could do) and let me have my last 5 minutes of happiness before I have to walk out into the frigid night air and cry myself to sleep inside my tiny apartment?

 

Irene looked at me one last time, right as the song came to a close, and her face appeared as if she just got a bucketful of cold water dumped on top of her meticulously done makeup and hairdo.

 

She noticed, I thought. And weirdly, at that, all I could do was smile at her. Of course.

 

The song ended, and Irene’s chair toppled down onto the floor. Nobody noticed it, nor did anyone notice the act of a bride in the middle of going rogue (beside her husband, who only picked up his wine glass with a bitter smile as he directed a silent cheers to my direction) as it was masked by the much missed sound of a room full of people breaking into claps and appreciative hoots directed specifically to me.

 

She’s finally noticed.

 

_

 

I sat on the sofa within the green room and waited, in a daze, for her to appear.

 

She did, five minutes later, slip through the heavy double doors whilst shaking off a tail of acquaintances who were giving her their well wishes. A faint trace of forced, amicable smile was still present in her face when she turned around to look at me.

 

No hassle, not even a second of seeking. She turned her head and met my gaze. Like she was drawn to it. Like it was magic.

 

Ok, to be fair, I was wearing a metallic baby blue dress (she always have the weirdest sense of fashion, that Irene) in a dim room packed with electronic and music equipment. It wasn’t necessarily the hardest thing to do. But can’t a grieving girl be given that last piece of fantasy to soothe her wounded heart?

 

Thank you.

 

Irene, a princess lost in a pauper’s home, walked towards me with steps so determined she didn’t stop even when her pristine white dress snagged on one or more metal contraptions placed haphazardly along the narrow alley. Her eyes were burning. Her lips were pulled thin. I would’ve thought that she’d gone and struck me if not for the soft, nearly motherly frown that was creased onto her face.

 

Still separated by a few steps, she went to open , most likely readying herself to say something.

 

Something, that I didn’t want to hear.

 

So I averted my gaze, and she stopped. Right beside me.

 

I was looking down at my heels, blood red, and she was looking down at me. Her shining maid of honour who just indirectly dishonoured her.

 

Irene seemed to be trapped in her own internal conflict, judging from how often she shifted her weight between her trembling legs. Left, right, left, right, and I couldn’t help but let out a small, satisfied smile. Pain, pain, pain, she’s feeling my pain. She’s sharing the same emotion as I am feeling right now. I couldn’t get her love, can’t I? So let it be pain.

 

She held my hand, finally, with a clear intent. Not just an absent minded grab that developed from habit and the knowledge that I would always be there, next to her, a constant presence that she has regrettably taken for granted. It was a deliberate, conscious act, and a little shimmer peeking through that corner of pettiness within my brain laughed joyfully.

 

She held it so tightly her nails were digging into the back of my palm. It felt as if she was afraid I’ll run away if she let me go. Or maybe I'll disintegrate, into a pile of dust, the moment she stopped convincing herself that I was real.

 

Silly, silly Irene. After all this time?

 

“You never told me,” her whisper was carried through the depressing green room like a spring breeze going through my favourite park. The muted festivities happening outside served as inconsequential white noise. Car ignition rushing through the nearby road, children playing at the small playground, but I treated her voice like how I would a refreshing blow of wind after I finished my afternoon hike.

 

Her hair rustled when she ran her fingers to tuck some flyaway strands behind her ear. Green emerald earrings, like foliage, clinked against her nails. Of course. I should’ve known. Irene has always been my nature. I closed my eyes and imagined myself drowning inside her soul.

 

“You never told me.” She repeated. Her voice was sounding more and more jittery after she didn’t see me responding to any of her stimuli. “Why?”

 

I was planning on toying with her for a while longer, keep her heart wrapped around my fingers before she grew to hate me. Before her hatred turned to disgust and she cuts me from her life. Right? That’s what’s going to happen, right?

 

If that’s the case, I will make her hate me so bad she will never forget me, forever.

 

“Wendy! Why?!” Her voice spiked up into a near scream and she accompanied it with her hand firmly grabbing my shoulder.

 

“Because I know you don’t,” I said, very, very calmly. And similarly, I turned my head so I could directly meet her gaze. Her devastation was written in block letters when she could see the trace of a satisfied smile on my lips.

 

Or was it bitter? A little bit sadistic, maybe? Well, the point is, I smiled, and she cried. And I hated my whole entire existence for it.

 

“I do.” She said. Her voice bubbling up as tears began to collect at the corner of her lips.

 

I couldn’t fight off a scoff from making myself look even more like the bad guy in this situation, “no, Irene. You don’t.”

 

“I do, though! I do, I do,-”

 

“Don’t,” give me hope, I thought. Because I’ve spent a decade of my life living with the knowledge that you never did and you never will. “You know you don’t.”

 

“I would’ve tried.”

 

I smiled to her when she said that, a way for me to say thank you without having to waste my breath on something else that was not part of my effort to keep myself from losing my grip to reality.

 

“A love given is not real.”

 

She laughed at my words. Irene laughed, and threw her arms into the air in frustration. I knew what she was going to say next (always the wise one! Even in a time like this!), and so I beat her to it.

 

“Do you think I want this?!” My scream came out trembling and pathetic. But it was enough to stop her in her tracks. She had her back at me, which was perfect. I never would’ve wanted her to see me looking like this. A tearful, snotty mess. Pathetic.

 

I repeated my sentence, softer and with far less anger bubbling underneath it, after I saw how Irene was moving her fingers. Splayed out into a wide web, and shaking. The only time she ever does that was when she’s certifiably furious.

 

“Don’t be mad at me,” how selfish I am. How selfish am I? Very. How disgusting.

 

It’s her wedding. It’s the one day that everyone came to celebrate her love. And I ruined it for her. For everyone.

 

“I can’t… help it. I can’t.” And it’s true. Five years I’ve had this feeling. Three years since I’ve decided to never do anything about it. I’ve long made a pact with myself that I would never tell her about anything, about the mess that was myself to her ever since… ever since I knew how much she loves him.

 

I thought I’d be able to do that. I was nearly able to do that.

 

But bad people just can’t help being bad, can’t they? And of course it has to happen now, out of all days.

 

Why did I have to share with her my garbage now?

 

“I’ve wished so many times for me to stop myself from feeling… towards you… in that way,” her shoulders flinched when I continued talking. As if she was bracing for the oncoming storm that nobody foresaw. “It worked, everytime we talk and joke about silly things that no lover should ever talk about I thought, I can be her friend. I can think of her only as a friend. But then we would… you would look at me and smile at me and be nice to me and… and,-”

 

And she turned around. Her expression, which seemed to be stuck in a pained grimace the whole time she had her back on me, melted into something that I never deserved the moment she saw my cheeks that were already stained by streaks of melted mascara. Mercy. She gave me her mercy.

 

“And I loved you all over again.”

 

She didn’t say anything to that, which was great. Because I don’t think I would’ve survived if she spouted some nonsensical, casual, nearly automatic response of a ‘you know I love you too, right?’ I didn’t need to hear that. I didn’t know what I needed to hear from her but I knew for sure that it shouldn’t be that.

 

Irene made her way closer and once again took my hand into hers. She looked into my eyes, and I sobbed. I sobbed like a loser because she does. She does love me. With all her heart.

 

She has no fault in this. She’s completely white.

 

I am the one completely at fault for not being able to love her appropriately.

 

“I’m sorry, Wendy.” I’m so, so, sorry. You’ve suffered a lot because of me, haven’t you? “What do you want?” She said the perfect words. She asked me the perfect question. She’s too perfect, isn’t it? Totally not like how the usual Irene would act. She would scream, she would wail, she would leave me in the dust and run away in the heat of her own emotion until she would demand me back like the queen that she is. But knowing that I have nothing left to lose, I humored her with an answer that’d reside inside my heart so long, it has etched itself on the surface with deep grooves.

 

“Until I can love someone else, let me love you.”

 

The door was forced open and its metal pusher bar banged against the stack of old, disused amplifiers with a loud thud, interrupting the fantasy playing so vividly in my mind.

 

My head turned to the source of the commotion only to see Irene slipping through the heavy double doors whilst shaking off a tail of acquaintances who were giving her their well wishes. A faint trace of forced, amicable smile was still present in her face when she turned around to look at me.

 

No hassle, not even a second of seeking. She turned her head and met my gaze. Like she was drawn to it. Like it was magic.

 

“You,-” her lips were pulled to a snarl and she barreled her way towards me in determined steps.

 

Now this, this is Irene.

 

She may look a goddess but don’t let it fool you. Never let it fool you.

 

I swore she would’ve smack me over the top of my head from the way she kept her arms hanging awkwardly at her side. But she stopped just in time to let me protect myself with an accompanying giggle.

 

“What’s wrong with your face?!” I forced my giggle to turn into a mocking laughter and gave her arm a playful slap.

 

Her eyebrows creased, then. Deeper than before. Like she was in the process to swallow the words she was going to confront me with. Like she was in the process of rewiring the pathway in her brain, backtracking and erasing the one just a minute ago she was standing on.

 

Which was good.

 

It’s not real. Nothing is. Like I said before, nobody needs to know.

 

Nobody.

 

She gave my eyes one last scan. A very deep one, while we’re at that. And usually she’s the best at it. At finding lies, that is. It’s just a pity that she was dealing with someone who’s best at hiding their true self beneath another true self, beneath another true self, beneath another true self.

 

Who’s to say that I’m lying when everything’s true? Who’s to say that I’m deceiving her when I’m the one that’s being deceived.

 

“I… I was just,-”

 

“What? Did you think my performance was a love confession?” She flinched when I said that, which confirmed my suspicions. My worst nightmare. “Did you think I was trying to jeopardise your wedding?”

 

“No,- I…”

 

“Irene, if I was trying to ruin your I would have objected during the ceremony with a whole Spanish inquisition costume.” This time, when I laughed, she joined. But not for long. The sound grew quiet and it was quickly swallowed by the oppressive silence courtesy to the green room’s padded walls

 

“Your eyes… I thought,- I saw your eyes and I felt… fear.” She took a deep breath. She braced herself. And she looked at me. “It’s my biggest fear, you know?” There was a smile on her face when her first tear rolled down her face. She laughed it off with a handwave, as if saying ‘hormones. Don’t mind it.’ Though she should’ve known that I wouldn’t mind even if it wasn’t. “To hurt you like that.”

 

“Of course not, stupid.” I got up to my feet and made my way towards her. It felt so natural for me to reach out and wipe her tears with the pad of my thumbs. Isn’t this enough? This is more than enough. The pain in my chest pulsed, and spread to the tip of my limbs as a familiar warmth. I could live with this, I decided. I could live with this for a little while longer. “I’m just that good a singer.”

 

She took my hands off her cheeks and gave it a playful kiss. She just knows what to do to undo me to my core, huh? “You should try to get into the industry again.”

 

Irene laughed when I let out a disgusted, indignant scoff, and silence descended between us once more. She looked at me, and searched. Keep searching, Irene, until you’re happy with what you find because I can’t ever wait for what would come next.

 

Which was for you to pull me closer into a hug.

 

“I do love you, though.” I said, when her arms found its place on my back, snaking around mine before her fingers settled comfortably on top of my shoulders.

 

Her fingertips felt so cool against my heated skin. Her neck radiates a warmth that nearly made me go weak in the knees, and her cheek, pressed onto mine, tickled when she spoke next.

 

Who’s to say that I’m lying when everything’s true?

 

“I love you too,” she said, and I couldn’t help but to tighten my hold around her waist so that she was standing flush against me. One last wish, lord. Grant me this one last wish. “With all my heart.”

 

Oh, the joy to love and be loved.

 

Until I can love someone else, let me love her.