From the moment I set my eyes on this being, I found it hard to see anything else. It was only him since then. I found that everything I did made me think of him. My heart never felt much pleasure until he appeared.

I remembered the beautiful morning of the first snow 8 years ago. I was the same emotionless girl like I was now, except emotions was a foreign thing on the inside too at that time. It wasn’t his cool demeanor, it wasn’t his looks. It was the look in his eyes that I couldn’t veer my eyes from. It was so captivating, and I couldn’t save myself in time from the heartaches that came years later.

I was happy for the first time when I could make friends with him. I was glad that we got along well. I was thankful to no one in particular that I could meet someone like him.

Unlike me, he was a funny guy filled with so much emotion at once. And he could spread the smiles easier than any comedian could. He captured my heart immediately.

He hadn’t noticed it from my face that gave nothing away, but all the while he was by my side, I was trapped in his trance that I couldn’t escape from. Or perhaps, I didn’t want to.

He was my jewel for eight years. He was my only love in my life. I never loved my mother more than I loved him like it should be.

So when I found out he had to leave soon, emotions broke out my face for the first time. I cried. I cried for him. I cried for myself. I cried for us.

But I was a mute. I couldn’t say anything then. I couldn’t say anything now. And he couldn’t see me.

I was lying next to him on the hospital bed, our hands wrapped around each other. I didn’t want to let go, but the moment to do so felt like it was close by, and he was going to have to leave soon. My heart rejected the idea of it. I didn’t want that reality.

My whole life, I hadn’t been used to having anyone who I couldn’t communicate with despite my lack of voice. Not like I wanted to. But when I met blind little Jackson Wang at the age of 14, things changed. For once, I wanted so bad to be heard. I was prepared to do anything. Especially in this crucial moment. I yearned so bad that he could hear what I wanted to say, what I felt. I wanted him to be able to see and for me to be able to speak. I wanted my voice.

I could remember us having to learn to use touch to communicate. And our parents condoned it, because they knew the pain of having a child who had lacked certain pleasures in life, like seeing, like hearing. And they knew we had to heal. For that, we had to love each other. Because in some ways, we could learn to love ourselves in the long run. It was something our parents felt we had to learn. Eventually.

I was Jackson’s pill. He was my drug.

Embracing his body, I wanted to do it forever. I dreaded getting up not because of long school hours or being lazy. I was trapped in the situation whereby losing Jackson could be any time. I dreaded that mostly. Pain was a norm to me. But it wasn’t a choice for Jackson, like it was for me. He was always so light-hearted. So, why did he have to be cursed with this disease? Jackson, our moodmaker, deserved anything but that.

We were 14 then. Now we are 22, but we have yet to break from skinny love. Mainly because he couldn’t see me, nor could he hear me. So he never knew what I felt. And I wasn’t physically blind, but just a little, emotionally. We needed each other, but we couldn’t tell each other, much less show.

It was our disabilities that came between us, things we were supposed to embrace through each other. Now we just hated it even more.

I knew he was awake when he smiled and hugged me tighter. I wanted to see that smile every day, but I knew I couldn’t.

I was at a loss, I was crying. And Jackson didn’t know.

“Are you sick, princess?” his deep entrancing voice asked me.

I squeezed his hand in reassurance, hoping he could feel my reply.

We embraced in silence, mostly maximizing our moments together before it gets ripped away from us. This could be our last one, and we were still wondering how to make the best use of it.

“I can feel the beauty of the day, and I really want to see it with you. But I know I can’t,” he self-pitied.

I felt guilty for no reason. I loved his voice, but when he said things like that, I was upset that he couldn’t hear me telling him that it shouldn’t be the case, and that the world is not such a pretty place.

My whole relationship with him would sometimes tip to the point I felt selfish, that I could hear and see him, and he would receive nothing back from me. I was, in a way, guilty that he couldn’t enjoy what I enjoyed. In some aspects, I was still far more abled than he was. And it wasn’t fair.

Surely, my world was silent, and his world was blank. We lacked a different yet similar pleasure of life. But I could get my drug, and he couldn’t taste his pill, bitter as it is.

His left hand roamed on our bodies, searching for mine. Quietly, I gave him the pleasure of finding my hand by holding it close to his. It was a little game we practiced since our teens. It was our connection.

“Jackson,” I wanted to say.

I wanted him to hear my sacred voice. But he couldn’t. And like every day, my eyes watered at that fact. I blew in his ear and he let out his amazing laughter. It was the only response he could evoke from me, other than the touch of my hands. Like every day, his hand roamed my face, memorizing my face again and again.

“Eyes. Nose. Lips.” He would always say, every part, before, finally, he would kiss me.

And we would enjoy every second and every touch.

I would hold his face close to mine, with both our hands on each other’s cheeks. His thumb would my temples and I would tear up, like every day. Because one day, it will all disappear. Jackson would have to go, and I will be alone again, like I was 8 years ago.

He hugged me after I retreated, coaxing me as he hears my gasp for breaths. I was breaking down again, far from ready to lose him. I didn’t want to let go of him, not even when the doctors entered the room to do the regular checks on him. I wanted to be normal, I wanted to worry over the idea of these girls touching my Jackson, but I was more worried that their touches would find another problem with Jackson’s health, like they did every passing day. I had little time as I already did. I wasn’t ready to lose more.

I was forced away from my man when my father pulled me to my senses. He guided me out, as if he had control on my footsteps, because I knew I was strong enough to take anything except part from him. I needed Jackson, my only drug.

My eyes were bloodshot red, and tears kept falling, my father pointed out. But I didn’t care about myself. My best friend was dying. My boyfriend. The only being I’ve ever strongly wanted in my life. He was losing more life every day. One by one, his organs failed. Every second, life deteriorated for him at an increasing rate. I was not ready.

When the doctors left, I ignored my father’s pleas for my sanity to show itself again and get a grip of me, and I ran in, hoping to catch Jackson’s smile before it disappeared, in case it was about to.

Luckily, God was still smiling on him, letting him live. I squeezed his hand, listening to his wish, forgetting it could be his last.

“I want to feel the sun with you,” Jackson softly said.

I nodded, despite knowing he couldn’t see it. Helping him up, I guided his limping self to the wheelchair I had decorated, despite knowing it wasn’t something Jackson could feast his eyes on and smile, ruffling my hair and telling me I did a great job. Even at this age, I felt like a kid with him. I did everything that he could appreciate me for, forgetting he couldn’t see and perhaps would never know about it if my parents didn’t speak about it in front of him. Because he couldn’t see my efforts, and I couldn’t tell him how much I was trying.

In some ways, our parents was like our telephone. They conveyed certain things we might have never been able to convey without them.

I earnestly pushed him on his wheelchair, heading for the playground I knew existed nearby. Jackson liked the sound of children. My heart ached, remembering his one wish for having a daughter one day. It squeezed even more knowing he wouldn’t live long enough to see her, if we ever had one. Even if I really wished for another year or two with him. Jackson was slowly leaving my emotional embrace. And we both knew it, yet we continue to hold tight on the little string of hope, despite feeling the strong quiver every morning of reality.

“I love this atmosphere,” Jackson laughed his contagious laughter.

How sweet it sounded.

I grinned as we sat together in front of the playground, enjoying the breeze. I was on the bench, he was on the wheelchair. I knew that if he could, he wanted to sit on the swings again and get pushed by me because Jackson was in love with the wind. But his lack of ability to walk nowadays defied him that opportunity for another swing ride. He was almost committed to the wheelchair or the bed, given that even his back barely in use now. His spine was depleting.

The cancer. It spreads every day. Rapidly. As though the angels couldn’t stand us together. If they could, they wanted to defy the laws of science and rip him off my grasp this instant. I was considered lucky that today, I had woken up to another day with Jackson. Today, I hadn’t wakened up to a funeral I wouldn’t stop crying for. Jackson was still alive.

My hand in his, I would dread ever letting go, despite hours passing and the day ending soon.

Jackson had the freedom to stay with me in the park, because he wasn’t committed to anymore medicines, just the core ones. The doctors have specified that he couldn’t be saved, only given a little more time, even if it was depleting rapidly.

As the sun fell, so did my face, followed by my tears. I didn’t want to sleep because I was afraid I would wake up in an empty bed. I didn’t want to go back to that god forsaken room and I just wanted to stay in that moment in the playground filled with kids with a man I’d like to stay forever with. Unlike typical 22-year-olds, happiness was defined as that. I couldn’t taste this bit of happiness without Jackson Wang.

Eventually, our parents came to bring us back. And Jackson had fallen asleep in his wheelchair. I hadn’t even realize.

He was put to bed, and I lied next to him, hugging him, blind to the signs.

I waited. Waited for his good night. But nothing came.

I suddenly felt deaf, and I wondered if I had imagined the voices all my life. Was I also a deaf individual?

In fear, I tried to keep calm despite my shivers and I slipped my hand in Jackson’s. I felt for the familiar squeeze that came every night before we slept. There was none, and it didn’t feel like it was coming soon.

My 8-year-long recurring dreams flashed beneath my eyelids like lightning. The day I would lose Jackson. Was it here?

I laced my fingers within his, waiting for some sort of reply from Jackson. Was this how Jackson felt when he introduced himself 8 years ago? Was this how he felt all the time he tried to express his love to me? I was desperate for the little signs he always gave to indicate to me that he was still alive. That he was still there.

We had just returned, so the wires to indicate his heart rate hadn’t been fixated on his body. There was only one way to find out, but that would mean I had believed Jackson had left. How could I, when he always told me he wouldn’t go anywhere? It would be an act of mistrust.

Perhaps I was crazy for trying to rely on any hope left, but every action was crucial for me. Subtly, I rested my head on his chest, pretending I was only embracing him like I did every night. My poker face remained. The face that I didn’t have to change despite having someone I wanted to please in my life, because Jackson didn’t have the evil ability to judge me from my face. He only looked at my heart.

My ear directly above his heart, I closed my eyes and tried to imagine myself blind, only able to see the heart structure. I listened for the precious beats.

None.

I couldn’t scream for help. I had no energy to press on the little help button. I could only cry.

Never have I felt so lonely until that night. I could only wonder if Jackson’s spirit was at least watching over me, because physically, I couldn’t see him like I could all this time. I felt like I was thrown into his shoes that allowed him no image or sound of me.

Our hands were laced, but I couldn’t feel the connection. Was this how he had felt all this time?

The silence of the room was deafening, and hard as I tried, reality couldn’t be grasped, not without the supposed cries of pain.

“Jackson,” I suddenly heard myself crack.

“Jackson,” I tried again.

“Jackson…..” I muttered his beautiful name.

I said it another hundred times.

But it was too late.

He couldn’t hear me.

He was gone.

Tuesday
00:11:02
14/02/06