2012

I was feeding our dog Pyro when Dara entered the house. Pyro immediately wags his tail and runs toward Dara as he barks simultaneously. I always think Dara is his only master. How’s that? I mean I’m the one who’s always at home and feeds him and takes him for a walk. But why does he like Dara more than me? She’s never home and she doesn’t play with him that much. I’m the one he’s supposed to love more.

“Hi, how’s your work?” I asked as I help her carrying her bag in. She sighed. She looks incredibly tired and she looks like someone who was being forced to starve for days. She took off her jacket and shoes and lie on the couch right away.

“My patient died after I stood there repairing his heart and having his blood all over my hands and face for eight hours straight. I can’t believe this.”

“Did you take a shower in the hospital?” I said as I walked to her. I lifted both her legs and let her rest them on my lap. Then I started giving her a massage, just like I always do when she comes home after a surgery.

“Yes of course. I smelt like a dead man.” She replied and then she closed her eyes.

She let go of several moans. “Oh I love it. I wonder where did you get so good at it.” She murmurs.

I smiled. I’m happy she’s home earlier today.

“Babe, are you hungry? Coz I bought some ingredients today at the grocery store. I thought I might cook and prepare you a nice dinner tonight. You want it?”

She grinned, “That sounds great. It’s been a long time since I have dinner at home. Thanks, Chae.”

So I started cooking the dinner while she’s sleeping on the couch. It only took five minutes for her to fall asleep. She must be exhausted. I should be proud of her. She’s accomplished her goal. Many people come to the hospital to look for her, wanting her to fix their heart, wanting her to save their lives. She really is my hero. My beautiful hero.

After fifty minutes, the dinner is done. I cooked steaks and some potato salads. Also I made a special tomato soup Dara likes. I figured she must need something to keep her warm inside. I poured the wine to the glasses after I set up the table neatly. I smile as I look at the table. It looks beautiful.

“Are you 100% sure?”

I showed up in the living room only to find Dara up. She’s already up, walking back and forth as she’s having a call with someone. She’s frowning. I swear I never seen her not frowning everyday. She always frowns and I think she’s got some wrinkles around her eyes. She looks older than she is and she’s getting skinnier. I’m worried about her but she never listens to me.

She starts talking about some medical stuff I don’t understand. Obviously she’s talking to one of her residents. She’s yelling and she sounds desperately mad.

“! Okay, don’t do anything. I’m on my way now. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

She hung up and started putting on her jacket and shoes again.

“Whoa… wait a minute! What are you doing?”

She looks at me with that guilty face she always shows me every time she needs to leave all of sudden or when she has to come home late or not coming home at all and I hate that face. I ing hate that face.

“My other patient. He’s crashing and I need to get there. My resident can’t do this alone without my help. They need supervisor.”

“But I’ve prepared the dinner, at least eat first!”

She shook her head and she walked to me quickly, she cupped my cheek and kissed my lips for one second and then she walked away. That’s what she always does. That’s it, she thinks just giving me a quick meaningless kiss would make me less mad at her.

“I can’t. I’m sorry. I really am sorry, Chaerin. But I’ll be back before midnight. I promise.”

“Don’t promise, Dara. You never keep it. And I’m ing sick of it.” I blurted it out. Those words just came out of my word. I’m a little surprised I finally said it. She looked at me with her eyes widened. I believe she’s surprised as well. I never said rude things to her. After years, this is the first time I ever said something like this. I’ve always respected her. But today, I can’t fake it anymore.

“Chaerin, please. You have to understand.”

“Are you really going to the hospital?”

She tilted her head lightly, “What do you mean?”

I walked closer to her and looked her in the eye. “Are you really going to the hospital every night? Are you…”

“What the are you talking about?!”

“Are you cheating on me?”

I’ve been wanting to ask her that question for months. The idea of it came to me when one of my friends in the course talked about her husband who’s been going out at night almost every single day and turns out he’s cheating with his secretary. I don’t want to suspect Dara, but sometimes it doesn’t make sense. She just spends too much time outside rather than home. I believe I’m not insane for asking that question.

“What?” she murmured. She looks at me in awe. “Are you serious, Chae? You think I’m cheating on you?”

“It’s just… you’re never home. You leave me alone in this house every morning, every day. I know you’ve given me everything, anything I want and anything I need. But that doesn't mean I don’t need you. I need you, Dara. You don’t have any idea how I miss you and how I want to tell you to stop but I can’t because I know you can’t stop. I’ve tried to understand you and considerate about your job but it’s been five years. We barely spend time with each other. I can’t even remember when was the last time we had .”

She started shaking her lips and she looks like she’s about to cry. “When I asked you to marry me, I thought you understand what are the consequences is, Chaerin.”

“It’s not about that. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about… time. I ing need your time. I ing need you to take a break. Have fun for a bit. Spend more time with me.”

“Have fun? How am I supposed to have fun? I need to work. I have my patients, they die if I’m not there. I’m the chief of cardiac surgery. I have a lot of responsibilities. And where do you think we get all the money if I don’t work? How do you think we got the money to buy this house, the cars, to pay the electricity, the foods, everything. Where do you think you’re gonna get money and buy anything you want if it’s not because I work hard everyday to get us some money to live our fancy lives?”

“I don’t need your money. I told you I’ll find a job!”

“That is some bull from six years ago, Chaerin. You never got a job. And I don’t need you to work. I give you freedom, to do anything you want. I give you a life where you don’t have to beg money for living. I give you a perfect way to live but you accused me of cheating on you. Why did you do that?”

I’ve got nothing left to say. She grabbed her key and walked out of the house immediately. I saw tears in her eyes. She didn’t want me to see her crying so she quickly turned away. I stood by the door, watching she drove off our yard.

And that’s it. That is how we live our lives these days. We fight a lot lately and we barely recognize each other anymore. We always misunderstand each other any time we talk about something and it leads to one of us became offended and of course it leads to a fight.

I feel like every time we fight, the bond between us is disappearing. I wish we wouldn’t end up badly like those couples we like to mock at, telling how we were never going to be like them, that our love were strong and we were so faithful to each other and we would still be together forever no matter what.

Well now I think that’s what almost every couples talk about before things really happened and then they realized it was just bull, those kind of talks are nonsense.

When I was thinking about how I’m gonna be miserably spending the rest of the night alone, I remember my short meeting with Tiffany this afternoon. I was quite stunned by her but not so surprising though, people like Tiff, they tend to have this gentle aura around them that makes people like everything they do, really, literally everything.

She ordered a cup of hot mocha latte, insisting on telling me that mocha latte has the least caffeine in them, compared to any other various of coffees. She said she read that in some book. But I don’t really believe her coz I think every coffee that are not a black coffee tastes mostly the same.

“I don't know, I’m not a coffee expert but they all tastes the same, sweet, c