Permanence.

I could never grasp that.

The idea of something being lasting, something that was worth forever.

I hated this, this hyperbole. Nothing is worth forever. Nothing. I know everything material fades and crumbles to dust with time. I know relationships aren’t spared from this evil doing of time as well. Relationships falter and memories vanish as the clock ticks time away nonchalantly. I’ve lost people, people important to me before and I don’t see why I should allow any more people into my heart just so I could watch them leave me with eager pressing feet again. Whether intentional or not.

I’ve had times where I try to keep tight reins on my memory, telling myself I should never forget any wonderful moments in my life. But as time passes I find myself losing them, involuntarily shedding these beautiful moments out of my head. I scramble to search for those lost elements of the memories.

In the event of this, I ask myself, should I continue to persevere & forage for those wonderful but forgotten memories? Or should I take it as sign to move on and create new ones using new beginnings with new people?

As I lay on this single pink bed snuggled close to an alluring girl, however, my breath is hitched and suddenly all these thoughts are deemed insignificant.


-----

I was so close to success at being alone after I have had enough of people walking in and out of my life, sometimes even trampling on my heart and leaving jarring footprints. I have had enough of crying for people who didn’t seem to think of me as important as they were to me. I have had enough of my heart breaking for all the wrong reasons.

I deserved better.

So I decided I would have none of that anymore.

I would be independent. I would be great, alone.

I spent the next one year or so just being alone, in my own apartment and working with a job I acquired on my own. I did everything on my own. Although I missed the intimacy of being with people, I couldn’t breach this social barrier I built with my own hands. I couldn’t risk having people come into my life and then take my trust and give it away freely.

No, I could not.

I’d rather be alone.


-----

On one blistering summer morning I trudged to the usual Starbucks outlet and purchased my one and only beverage I ever drink in Starbucks. Before I could make my order however...

“Green tea frappe for you mam?”

That sweet-as-hersheys voice resonated in my ears, like it did every morning when I entered the café. Today it seemed to make more impact aside from the usual "Hi, may I take your order?" My jaw dropped slightly and the ends of my lips spread into a slight but awkward smile. I nodded.

She must have taken notice of my miniscule exasperation at how she’d known my order without me verbalizing it.

“I can read your mind… I’m just kidding,” She giggled, “I’m sorry it’s just that you’ve been here everyday just ordering green tea frappe… and like it or not your order has been kind of etched in my memory.”

She flashed a smile before proceeding to make my drink.

That’s when I took the time to notice, to actually scrutinize her (in a good way, of course). Jet black hair, small nose, cherry lips and those chocolate brown eyes that transformed to a pair of tiny crescent moons when she smiled, showing her pearly whites.

She’s pretty…

“Here you go, have a nice day! I'll see you tomorrow?” She ended the last word on a higher note. I saw her grinning and I was sure it was because she knew I would indeed be back tomorrow.

I nodded my head shyly and headed off to work.

This carried on for a few weeks before I find myself walking along the street path, the lampposts casting our shrunken shadows on the concrete ground, with my hand in hers. The evening zephyrs are rustling past our hair and I can taste the scent of her Bvgalri green tea perfume lingering in the cool summer air.

I smile.

She knows how much I love green tea.


-----

I don’t know how but I find my walls crumbling, crumbling way too easily in these few months. We spend nights over at each other’s places and there was this night she made me talk. Made me talk about me. But she talks about herself first, perhaps as an ice-breaker. And she doesn’t really stop talking. It’s cute to see her just well, rambling on and on…

“C’mon taetae, tell me a little more.” She finally says. She never forgets about me.

I try to resist telling. All the time. My lips remain pursed and I just look down. I wonder how I ended up here, in her place, in her room and violating my rule of not being close to anyone anymore.

Tiffany must possess some sort of superpower to make me feel this comfortable with such intimacy that I haven’t actually dealt with in a very long time.

Tiffany. Yes, she must be someone special. I try to convince myself.

There’s an inner struggle within me and I don’t know how to deal with it. I like her, I mean I like this, I know I do. But I know once it ends (I know it will) it’s going to kill me. It’s going to crush me into a pulp and I foresee myself clambering over the shattered pieces of my heart, trying to piece them back together, again.

I snap out of this rather conflicting reverie and look up. Somehow whenever I look into those chocolate orbs I fail and my refusal to speak suddenly dematerializes. She’s pouting to try and gain admission into my thoughts and
she does.

“Taetae tell me!”

So I tell her… and I tell her, and tell her. She now knows about my reticence and wanting to be distant from people so I will not be hurt. She doesn’t know, however, that innately I’m still scared she’s going to be one of those persons who will come in and exit pompously from my life. Or maybe she does know because the next thing she says tugs at my heartstrings.

“Taetae,”

I can honestly never get over her sweet voice just serenading my ears with my nickname, a nickname she personally gave me. She could say it all night and it wouldn’t even bother me.

We are seated up on her bed; she reaches for my hands, holds them and places them on her lap.

“The future is uncertain and I cannot promise you a forever…”

I frown sombrely. I knew this was going to be transient - Tiffany’s relationship with me dancing lightly on my fingertips, the happiness of it as fleeting as a shooting star flashing across the midnight sky.

“But as far as I’m concerned, I’m in love with you. I know right now I’m not capable enough to assure you of any form of permanence but please trust me. Because I know I love you and I’m sure as of now I will not let you go with such ease.” She ends while squeezing my hands.

Her words were so honest, so genuine. She didn’t try to come up with exaggerated clichéd phrases of “I’ll be here forever” or “I will never let you go”, and I was grateful for that.

That was the night I unlocked my heart, threw away the key and gave my bare raw fragile heart solely to Tiffany Hwang.


-----

A few weeks after that, we are having those heart-to-heart conversations Tiffany insists we should have. So we clutch onto her pink fluffy pillows and just talk on her bed.

“Taetae tell me about your first kiss,” She asks boldly.

“W-What?” My eyebrows furrow and I shoot her a confused look.

“Well, you’ve obviously kissed someone before yes?”

“Duh” I replied coolly.

“So tell me! What was it like!” She starts to get really hyper and bounces on the bed with her when I remain mum, not knowing where to start, because honestly, I have no idea how my first kiss felt like anymore. My brain must have deemed it insignificant and unworthy to be remembered when the person I lost my first kiss to walked away from my life, just like everyone else.

“I don't know, really,” I sigh in defeat. “It’s just been ages, I mean awhile, since I’ve kissed someone so I’ve... kind of forgotten that feeling already.”

I scoff like it’s no big deal because everyone leaves. As well as the taste of another person's lips on mine. It dilutes, and feelings and memories and everything else also ebb away...

The next thing I know I see Tiffany inching closer to me and she tilts my chin up with her right hand, her left hand still holding and rubbing small circles on my right hand. Our eyes both flutter close and I finally feel her cherry lips on mine… soft like marshmallows. She presses her lips harder (but still gentle nevertheless) on mine and her arms wrap around my neck. My pulse suddenly accelerates and I exhale shallow gasps in between kisses. She pulls away after a good long kiss and she throws me a silly look. My cheeks are flushed a deep pink hue.

“I hope you never forget how my kisses feel like.”

 
-----

I fast-forward to where I am now, on her bed again, snuggled up with her and those memories as well as my reticent selfish thoughts are flooding my mind.

Suddenly I feel like I should give this a chance. So what if this doesn’t work out in 50 years time? So what if Tiffany decides to leave me the next year? So what if there might be any obstacles that will impede the progression of my relationship with Tiffany in the future? So what if my memory chooses to fail me and obliterate some of these moments with Tiffany?

So long as her coming into my life and loving me was real, was tangible, even for that brief period of time, I guess…

That's all that matters.

That's all that will ever matter.