Genre: Fiction
Unsaid
Feeling apprehensive, I walked towards the cinema, looking out for a familiar face. It was the mall near my house where we used to walk about aimlessly for hours and smuggle snacks into the movies.
As usual, it was always me who would notice him first in the sea of rushing faces, with him always bypassing me, aiming straight ahead searching, but never looking carefully.
“Hey!” I said, making him jolt. A fringe now covered his forehead, his chest now well-defined. But his cheeky grin that reached his eyes stayed unchanged.
It was a movie I had initiated, for we had watched the first part together and I felt that we should watch it together to somehow- put things to completion. I guess I didn’t like the feeling of things suspending nor the feeling of uncertainty. I really liked this series, but it would not feel right if I watched it with someone else. Making small talk and walking towards the cinema, it felt oddly familiar. It was a thing we used to do so frequently, but the gap of three years apart seemed to set a pall on us.
As with high expectations, they would usually culminate in great disappointment. The movie was a turn-down. Walking silently towards his car, like the movie’s bad ending, the mood between us seemed to swell, like a reminder of a sore thumb of the three years apart.
“How’s your family?” I asked, breaking the silence.
“My mum misses you.” He said with an unfathomable expression in this eyes.
He swerved the car out of the lot, the engine coming to life, whirring inconsistently.
I recall the times whenever I visited, the cool hard marble beneath my feet, and the middle-aged lady who always rushed to see me from the kitchen, carrying plates of snacks and fruit to offer.
I looked into his eyes in the enclosed space of the car that we were in. The gap between us seemed to dissolve and I felt the familiarity of comfort, of being true to my bones whenever I was with him.
Like the things that were unsaid, the rain droplets outside fell upon the window panes, silent in their movement, but creating a clear mark after their streak against the cool surface.
“Then how about you?” I probed, genuinely curious. “How’s that girl?”
“She’s a-girl-next-door, nice and quiet.” He answered. And after a pause, “Are you sure you want to know?”
“Yes of course. She’s sounds so different from me. How did you ask her out?”
“Oh.” He looked over, unsure, then continued, “A folded paper rose.”
I thought of the intricate bouquet of handmade roses he gave them to me three and a half years ago in a mix of neon colors- pink, yellow, green, blue, that now lay in the bottom of my cupboard, unseen and forgotten, collecting dust. A funny feeling slowly seeped into me. I thought that his handmade roses were meant for only me. I just could not bring myself to imagine him doing the things we did together with another person. Instantly, I mentally stabbed myself for such selfish thoughts.
“Oh, that’s nice.” I replied, perhaps a little too high-pitched. It was as if something was being stirred up, like how dust rises into the air when a small gust of wind blows.
“You changed me”, he said suddenly. Pause. “You taught me how it was to love someone.”
“You changed me, too…” I trailed off. The amount of thoughts in my head were far too large, too heavy, to be put into simple words.
I looked out of the window, the passing roads forming a blur of orange and grey now. The times we spent together seemed to follow suit, whizzing past in my head.
He never made me insecure, and he never made me uncomfortable. Whenever I was with him, I could gape at the movie screen without feeling conscious, I could eat like a fool in front of him without feeling ashamed and I could just go on dates without arranging my hair that never failed to look unkempt.
It was his first time driving both of us, and I recalled the past when we mentioned that we would go for night car rides when he could drive, where we could then go back home anytime without the worry of transport.
Looking at him less than an arm’s length away, I imagined us being together again. Would things be different? No, I answered myself. We would still be vastly different and incompatible. But it was him alright, just across me, in a plain black tee and pants. It was him alright, talking about his same friends, making jokes, talking about things with his in-born confidence. It was him alright, that used to give me his undivided attention and time, him who would be the one who send me to and from work no matter how tired he was, him who would listen to all my problems and silently detest the people who unsettled me. But it was different now. Who could I blame, when I was the one who had let go of the string as to which tied us together?
As what they say, “Out of sight, out of mind”. People move on anyway. So did I, and him. Like the movie, it started with great expectations, with people rushing to the movie quickly in hope of fulfilling their desire and expectations. But some things don’t always turn out the way we want them to.
When the string broke off, it did not break off violently like strings usually do. It broke off in a natural way as if there was a very invisible but gentle force pulling on both ends, finally breaking without a sound like it was meant to be from the beginning. When the string broke, it felt as if some part of me went along as well. It seemed to me, I didn’t know what the word, love, entails. It seems too powerful a word to be used haphazardly, like how people say it nowadays. I looked at him across me. He was still the same, but different. I should not look into the past too much, for some things are meant to just stay in the past. Where the people we miss are different from who they are now. I guess I am no different.
The entire thought process ran through my mind uncontrollably. How time flies. Before seeing him, I did not know that pain can be delayed and buried so deep inside that you would not know its presence until a certain time comes. Ridiculously, I relished and savored the pain that came. A pain that came from a void, without a rhyme or reason. I guess I will never stop wondering about myself.
The car turned into my driveway.
“I should go soon. I have work tomorrow.” I said.
There was a millisecond of silence. I wanted time to stand still, where I wouldn’t have to go, and he wouldn’t have to leave and we could just enjoy each other’s presence.
“Can I have a hug before I go?” I said, unable to stop myself.
He looked over with his glittering eyes in the dark, illuminated by the street lamps outside.
“Sure.” He reached over and enveloped me in his arms. I inhaled his familiar body scent –which was just plain body soap; no cologne, no deodorant; just soap. I edged my face into his shoulders and inhaled again. For that few seconds, it felt as if I never left. It felt as if his shoulder was moulded for my face, my chin. His body scent transported me back to past, where he would bore his dark, diluted pupils into mine and whisper I love you when I felt inadequate and doubtful. Time, like trickling sand in an hourglass, has really flown, and fast. The tears finally came, pooling uncontrollably and rolling down silently like the raindrops outside. I bit down on my lip for fear that my tears might make its presence known. The car whirred steadily now. I closed my eyes and we stayed still for a few seconds. The unsaid things that hovered heavily over us seemed as if it was going to burst-but slowly, it seemed to resign to its fate. It decided that it needn’t have to be said and proceeded to just enclosing us in its invisible, protective shell.
I breathed in one last of his body scent, as if it was antidote for my splintered soul. “I should really go now.” I shifted resolvedly out of his embrace and unbuckled my seatbelt hurriedly as my voice threatened to tremble in front of him.
“Do you want me to send you back?” He asked.
“No, it’s alright.”
I got out hurriedly and walked furiously, the tears coming full flow now.
The years we had been together formed a monument in my world, but I know that the years with us apart would now increase, forming a great distance where I could only think of the monument without ever trying to change its form or construction, or even try to build something with the same material.
Until now I never understood the way I functioned. The way my mind thinks, the way my heart feels, the way I act – they all form an incomplete puzzle, the edges all placed in the incorrect places. But still a picture, which I have yet to find out.
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