Coffee, Candles and Hangovers

I was nineteen when we first met. Who was I? Most people thought I was a nice enough guy. Polite, smart, helped old people cross the street - the whole package. Some said they got a bad vibe from me, though I seemed harmless enough. What nobody knew about, was my 'dark' side. I don't want to talk about that now, we'll come to that later.

Who was she? She was twenty two years old and successful. And I mean successful in its most cliche meaning. A good job right out of college with a decent salary, not a college dropout who found success in 'doing what she loved and not what she was expected to do.' She was practical, she had goals, she was everything I wasn't.

So how and why would these two people meet, these two people with lives on opposite ends of the spectrum. What in their meetings would cause their lives to be linked together by this unbreakable tether, I don't know. But I do know that we're connected now. I haven't figured out fate's gameplan so I don't know why we met. I do know the answer to how we met, so I guess that's a start.

I woke up with a terrible hangover on her couch. It would have made sense except that I didn't know her at that point. Neither did I have any idea how and why I was there.

When I woke up that morning, the hangover flashing lights in front of my eyes, I had no idea where I was. I got up, blinking slowly and made my way to the room from where I heard voices. It was there that I saw her.

At first sight she looked nothing special. Just another girl, barely older than I was. It was much later that I began to notice the little dimple on the edge of her smile, that her eyes had this way of seeming so deep and so knowing that I could fall into them, that her gaze left me enraptured and speechless.

But for then, she was another nothing-special girl. A voice broke my alcohol slurred mind's theory formulation as to who she was and why she was there. I followed the sound across the table and met the eyes of a friend. Not someone I was particularly close to, a guy I knew from school.

Her phone buzzed and she smiled politely at me, excusing herself and left the room, leaving me alone with the friend. He smiled at me and offered me a seat, which I took and got me a glass of water to swallow the couple of aspirin he dropped into my hand. In about ten minutes or so, the girl still on the phone, I wasn't quite used to thinking of her as a woman just yet, when I was capable of coherent speech, I asked him where I was.

He said we had met at the bar on the next block and had found me passed out by the door when he was leaving, the bar staff debating on whether or not to roll me out into the street. He picked me up and piggy backed me to the place I woke up, his sister's apartment.

I sat at that table, kitchen table, I noticed after a while, trying to piece together the memories of the night before. I remembered going to the bar with a few of my classmates, bastards who'd left me passed out by the door. Then I remembered meeting this guy there, chatting for a while, treating him to a drink. But the rest of the evening's worth of memories were wiped out.

If this had happened any other day, I'd have taken the partial amnesia to mean that I had a good time. But somehow I didn't feel that way on that day. I felt like I was overstaying my welcome and said that I'd better be leaving. He looked concerened.

Somehow he persuaded me to stay for breakfast. The girl was still on the phone. She came in  after about ten minutes when her brother started taking out plates. She smiled at me asked me something, I think it was if I was feeling better or maybe she asked me what my name was. I don't really remember, it was a long time ago.

I had breakfast there and I left. Went back to the apartment I shared with all the guys I went drinking with last night to find them fast asleep on the floor, some even managed to make it to the couch and bed. Since it wasn't fair that I had woken up so early, I switched on the music system and turned the volume up to maximum so that they all woke up with the noise pounding in their brains.

Life went on as usual. I didn't think about that guy or his sister at all for the next four months. Then my world came crashing down.

See my parents lived very far away, since I don't want to go into details I'll just say they lived in another continent and they expected me to be studying really hard when they were paying top fees in one of the best educational institutions in the world. But when their son was involved in a drunken party/brawl/thingamajig which resulted in a couple of guys with broken bones and one guy with severe alcohol poisoning they weren't pleased. And in case you hadn't figured it out, 'not pleased' was the understatement of the millenium.

So my parents flew down from wherever they were at the moment, international go-getters that they were, to spend 'some quality time' with their son. And me, the son in this equation, had some 'quality' time with them for about a month. An entire month, waking up to the brand new sermon mommy thought up at night, did I mention my mother gave inspirational speeches for a living? I didn't? Well, she did. And that was followed by breakfast with daddy who spoke about how I wasn't 'go-getter' enough in my entirely 'go-getting' family and I was such a disappointment.

Sometimes they tried the blackmail card, where did we go wrong, did we not love you enough, did we not motivate you enough. And though I can be pretty stupid, I had the sense to know that those were rhetorical questions and kept my mouth shut like a good boy who repented.

Did I repent? Not really. I was rather indifferent. I didn't beat up those guys, they beat each other up. I didn't force the booze down the other guy's throat, he made a choice, even if it was a stupid, alcohol influenced choice. None of that was really my fault and I didn't feel sympathetic to them at all. No emotion of any kind. Maybe that was my dark side.

Then mommy and daddy left to go-get some more and I was left alone. Most of the guys involved had either turned over a new leaf or had been placed under parental crackdown, so it was just me left. And I couldn't afford that apartment we shared on my own so I looked for a smaller one. I got a room in a motel while I looked for a flatshare.

It was then that I met her again. But when I did, I didn't recognize her. It's not that she looked particularly different, I just didn't remember.

We met at a bar. Just because I had been advised a bazillion times, it didn't mean I didn't drink any more. I did, just not that much. And don't be mistaken that I didn't drink as much because of what I had been told, it was just that I didn't have good drinking buddies anymore.

So anyway, I was at that bar with a group of my college mates, sort of like a group date, a chance to pick up girls. But the ones there seemed terribly unattractive to me. Especially the ones who were hitting on me. When I told one of my friends, the guy that dragged me there, that I was bored to death and leaving he asked, 'What? The girls not good enough for you?'

I laughed and tried to deflect the accusation but you know how if you get drunk you fixate on some things? He fixated. And that turned into a bet that I couldn't get any girl in the bar to 'go somewhere quieter for the night.'

Maybe I'd had one too many drinks as well, because I accepted the bet and set out to find the girl that'd make me rich. That's when I saw her. She was different from the girls I was sitting with, no clunky jewelery, no heavy make up, no unneccessary giggling. The word 'unneccessary' has too many double letters. Just saying.

So I walked up to her and flashed my most debonair smile and said something cheesy in my best charismatic voice. We had drinks together but she refused to go somewhere else with the excuse that she had a boyfriend. I left and found another girl to sleep with.

The next day when I was wandering the streets with the classifieds page of the newspaper, looking for a place I could afford, I came across a familiar street with a familiar bar down the block. And I wondered if that friend who piggy backed me was still around and would he happen to want to go out for drinks sometime. Yeah, I was that pressed for good company over a glass.

I'm not quite sure what I was thinking when I took the lift up to the right floor or when I was ringing the doorbell. But I know what I thought when I saw the girl I flirted with the night before open the door in a dressing gown. I thought that the 'boyfriend' she spoke of was that friend I came looking for. No seriously, I didn't make the corelation.

She looked surprised, 'Oh you again' and asked me why I was there. I stammered something about a guy that lived there and she looked confused. She said that there wasn't a man living there and when I said his name she said, 'Oh, that's my brother. He doesn't live here. Do you know him?'

She invited me in and we got our stories straight over coffee. Oh so you were the drunk guy my brother carried in and oh you were the girl on the phone. I still thought she was younger than me when I asked her how she afforded such a nice apartment and now that I think back I'm surprised she wasn't offended. She only smiled and said that her salary wasn't so bad. I had a 'Wait a second' moment and almost fell off my chair when I realized she was in fact, three years older than me and until then, I had been talking to her like a little kid. When I tried to explain she simply laughed, saying that she had figured it out and was waiting to see when I'd realize.

I left there an hour or so later after having the best coffee I'd had in my whole life. I'd also gained a flatmate.

I moved into her spare bedroom that evening and she decided on a rent without being overly partial. It was a little more than what I had been paying when I was sharing a flat with all my friends but much less than what I'd been paying for my motel room the past week, still a fair price.

All of a sudden, she became my best friend, my confidante. She was also pretty much my only close friend, even 'my guys at college seemed not to get me the way she did. We ate together, played video games together, went shopping for groceries together. Whoever woke up first made coffee, she made breakfast while I packed our lunches. We made dinner together after she came back from work, I stirred while she chopped, she fried while I added the spices. After dinner, she sometimes helped me with my assignments and I read through her reports pretending I understood what I was reading. We went out drinking together sometimes, she always stayed sane enough to drag me home to my bed. When I turned up stoned, she never got mad at me but I always felt guilty about ruining her carpet one time and the couch the next two times. She never asked me to pay for the dry cleaning but I guess that made me feel worse than all the speeches mommy thought of. I didn't realize it then, but it was because of her that I started drinking with a bit more control.

I needed her. When she went on business trips or training camps, I wandered through the apartment like a zombie with nothing to do. I cut class to pick her up from the airport, crushing her in a bear hug when I met her, much to the surprise of her collegues. The day she comes back I'd be beaming all through the day, making her favourite food for dinner, renting her favourite movie, buy a new game for my X-box that we'd play the whole night. I think she needed me too. Or maybe she didn't and I made it up in my head.

When we met her friends and collegues outside, they asked if I was her new boyfriend. She'd laugh and say that I was her flatmate. The next question usually was if we were living together. She'd nod and say that I even paid rent.

I wasn't ever asked if I was her little brother. She still looked younger than me. Maybe that blurred our boundaries a little bit, made us closer than we would have been, than we should have been. My friends asked me if she was in the year below us and if she had anymore pretty friends she'd introduce them to, once when we met at the movies. I said that all her friends were really old and that she was older than she looked. She laughed and threw popcorn at me. That day we got thrown out of the theatre for lauging too hard. But maybe it was because I overturned the bucket of popcorn on her head.

That evening, she sat on the floor, sulking, while I sat on the couch above her, picking bits of popcorn out of her hair. Then she sat in the tub in her dressing gown and made me wash her hair with all her shampoos and conditioners and nice-smelling-hair-product-things. She sulked and refused to make dinner after I splashed water all over her, but I knew she wasn't mad at me when she ordered take-out from my favourite Italian restaurant.

It had been over three months since we began this living arrangement. It was only then that I met her boyfriend. Though back when we met at the bar, she had turned me down saying she had a boyfriend it didn't really register. Those three months I was living in this little delusion in my head which told me that I'd marry her someday and we'd live together the same way like we did now, except we wouldn't say good night and go into separate rooms, we wouldn't part every morning with a pat on the back or a hurried wave but a sweet goodbye kiss, we wouldn't just hug when I went to pick her up at the airport. Also that I wouldn't open the door to find a tall guy at the door when instead I was expecting to find the delivery guy.

This tall guy looked at me and asked, "Who the fuck are you?"

I refrained from swearing by replying with, "I could ask you the same question."

He looked like he'd punch me in the face and I honestly thought he would, except that it was then that my savior looked out from behind me going, "Oh its you."

I went to my bedroom and got out about an hour later when I heard the guy leave. By then the food we'd ordered in had arrived and gotten cold and the noises of them talking had subsided. I stepped out of my room tentatively, as though I was in a warzone and was expecting to step on landmines to find her sitting on the couch, expression unreadable. I walked slowly, barely making a noise and stopped when I saw her, wondering if I needed to leave her alone. Still, she heard me somehow and looked up at me and gave me a sudden smile before getting up and walking over to the kitchen saying, "Take-out's grown cold. I'll reheat it."

I didn't know if I was supposed to pretend that I didn't notice tears in her eyes so I stayed quiet. She left the room and I stood frozen where I was. I thought I ought to say something so I followed her a few minutes later. She had her back to me when I walked in through the door.

"Hey, are you okay?"

She didn't reply, just nodded. I walked closer to her quietly and put my hand on her shoulder, "Hey, you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"You sure?"

She nodded. I turned her around. She shook her head and turned away. I don't know why I did what I did next but I pulled her into my arms. She resisted for a few seconds then turned around and buried her head in my chest. We stayed there for a long time, the food reheated and cooled again. We didn't talk, I don't think I was even thinking. I think she cried for some time. All I knew was I could feel her arms around me, her face buried in my chest.

Later she sat on the couch and I heated dinner for the second time. I sat next to her and pulled her onto my lap. She closed her eyes and leaned onto my chest, opening her eyes only when I nudged her lips with the fork, feeding her the twice heated spaghetti. I'd never seen her so vulnerable. Though we were terribly close and we could speak about anything, she always had a wall surrounding her deepest feelings. She would have told me if I'd asked her but I didn't. I'd felt like I'd have been prying. But right at that moment, she was curled up on my lap, her eyes swollen and red, complying to the fork i was guiding to her mouth.

I should have kissed her then. I should have picked her up and lay her on my bed and made love to her, make her feel more loved than she had her entire life and told her that I'd always make her feel that way. But I didn't. Because that thought didn't occur to me until much much later. The next night, maybe. Or even the next week. That night though, I slept on her bed. I slept with her in my arms. But nothing happened between us. Nothing at all. Not even a word passed between us. No thoughts, except that I knew I had to be there.

Time flies, about a year passes since that night. I still loved her, loved everything about her but I didn't see her everyday anymore. We didn't live in the same apartment. I moved out when it became unbearable to see her face every morning and still not be able to kiss her, to hug her, to tell her how much I loved her, to love her.

She called me often. Asking if I'm eating well, how living alone is treating me, how college is treating me. I figured she just wanted to make me feel loved, she'd heard enough stories about my parents from me to gather that I hadn't felt loved enough as a kid. Maybe I was needy but she accepted me. She loved me. It confused me.

Her boyfriend and her weren't dating anymore. She called me and said that it was me who gave her the courage to do what was right for her. We met for a celebratory dinner then went back home to tubs of ice cream. Hers was because she had left something that had been a part of her life, a destructive part, nevertheless still a part for over five years behind her. Mine was because I knew she still cried over something that was so wrong for her and there was nothing I could do about it.

Love hurt. It made me curl up into a little ball every time I hung up after talking to her, clutching my chest. It made me feel pain, white hot pain deep inside me every time we parted after a movie or dinner and I hadn't kissed her goodnight. It made me cry everytime she was upset, everytime I felt helpless.

You'd think that human beings would have evolved in some way that made them unable to fall in love, something that hurt so much. Evidently not. Whenever I said this to anyone but her, they'd protest that love also caused a lot of happiness. Maybe I was born a cynic, maybe things made me that way but I responded with wouldn't you get hurt when you broke up? What if you didn't break up? Oh please, you think your relationship is perfect?

She'd smile half a smile and nod. When you have one cynic in a relationship, it just means you might have a few disagreements. But when you have two cynics put together and you expect them to fall in love, you get the situation I had going on. Life sucked. She was still my best friend.

She turned twenty three and I was still nineteen. We had a little party, just me, her, cake and red wine. It felt like she was moving ahead and I was still stuck in love with her. It hurt. We still had fun that night. Played a new game on her Xbox, pretended we were at a karaoke bar, smashed cake on each other's faces. I slept off on the couch and woke up with a blanket over me and the smell of coffee in the air.

It was almost as if I wasn't in love with her enough that we had these little moments that made me fall for her harder, deeper, irreparably.

Her parents started asking her to find a nice guy and settle, it's hard being the independant daughter of conservative parents, she says. Once when her mom had visited while I was still staying there, I'm not sure she could quite decide whether to be horrified that her daughter had a man living with her or delighted that she had a 'live-in' boyfriend. After we explained that it was just a flatshare I think she was more disappointed than relieved. It's a weird world, filled to the brim with hypocrites.

My parents on the other hand thought it was extremely silly that I was living with an older woman. My mother, never shy to express her 'expert opinion' said that being with an older woman was the consequence of broken families and why did I have to do that, our family was perfect, wasn't it? Next thing I knew she'd say homosexuals were suffering from mental diseases so, I hung up.

Dad went on and on about 'cougars' though only barely audible because I'd almost burned the house down the first time he said it out loud. But when he met her, he started playing quite the different tune. When mom and dad walked in the door of my-then-shared-apartment for a surprise visit, they were quite surprised to see her. She was dressed in a black pant-suit, I thought her work clothes made her look sexier but I guess that isn't the point right now. Dad was instantly charmed by her go-getter ways and her sudden smile and her independant lifestyle. Mom on the other hand, hated her guts. Dad tells mom over the breakfast my flatmate had made for us before she left that the only reason mom hated her was because 'your son loves her more than he loves you' and mom sulked the rest of the evening.

All this happened over two years ago and now we come to right now. I'm twenty one years old and she's twenty four. She says sometimes that we should start splitting the rent fifty-fifty from next year on when I join the workforce. I tell her that I shouldn't have to because I don't really have a room of my own, I just share hers, I even share her bed and bathroom. She shuts me up halfway saying that I shouldn't be reminding her that she's a paedophile so early in the morning.

Confused? I don't blame you, I still am sometimes.

When you put two cynics in a room, give them food, water and put holes in the walls to allow for air circulation, something happens. You start with one of them having a drinking problem and being irrevocably in love with the other, and the other having an abusive boyfriend. For a while they're going to be cynical about the possibility of being in love with each other, one pretending to be cynical, the other not realizing that she's pretending. Soon they sort their lives out and as soon as that process starts, separate them and put them in facing rooms with a glass wall separating them. Don't forget the food, water and airholes. Add some unfavourable conditions and soon they find their way around the glass wall.

You want to know how they found their way? They wouldn't tell you. For these two, it's a wonderful, magical thing. They wouldn't tell you.

Fine, I'll tell you. I pretended to be drunk and kissed her. She kissed me back then swatted me away and tucked me into bed. Then I sat up and told her I wasn't drunk and we spoke for hours and she kissed me again before going to her room. I know, it's a stupid story. But yeah, it served its purpose.

We began to date and our relationship didn't change all that much. I felt that she had begun to open up to me a little more, that she let herself rely on me a bit. I liked it that way. I don't think I'd have minded even if she turned into a huge sappy, clingy, possessive blob once we started to date, but she didn't.

She woke up first and made coffee. Some days when I woke up earlier, I lay in bed watching her sleeping face and pretended to be asleep when she woke up. She made breakfast, I packed lunch, I snuck up to her from behind and snaked my arms around her waist. She squealed if she was surprised or sighed and leaned back onto me if she heard me coming. I bury my face into her hair, breathing in the smell that was so quintessentially her. Sometimes she'd turn around, kiss me on my nose and we'd stand there, swaying like we were dancing to music that wasn't there. Other times she'd reach her hands back and tickle me to make me let go while she tried to save the almost burnt eggs.

I came back from class and slept sometimes, one time when I was feeling cheesy, I finished my assignments, filled the house with candles and bought roses and poured out champagne. She came home later than usual that day and we spent the evening with nice smelling bubbles in the tub. Later that night when we were all cuddled in blankets (after fighting about who has to get up to switch off the lights) she joked that me being in a romantic mood was quite the fire hazard. I turned away from her and sulked. She hugged me from behind and whispered cheesy pick up lines at me until I laughed. Then she squeezed me tight and told me she loved me. We kissed.

Her friends think she's insane, mine think I'm a hero. But it doesn't really matter, neither of us cares. Her parents threaten to disown her, my mom thinks what I'm doing is horrendous.

Maybe someday we'll get married but for now, I treasure the small things. Kissing her good night, hugging her to sleep, eating out and playing footsie under the table.

Once in a while I wake up with a hangover on her couch, the smell of coffee in the air and the noises of someone in the kitchen. The only difference is that now, I know exactly where I am. And that this is where I'm supposed to be.

Smiles and Simple Things

All she really needed was to see his face on the pillow next to hers when she woke up.

It was the simple things that she lived for. The times he would smile up at her when she woke him up with his morning tea, sitting together out on their tiny little balcony cradling their warm mugs, his light tea, hers bitter coffee.

She sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes, forcing them open. Sleep clouded her view of the framed memories that adorned the yellowing walls of their seventh floor apartment.

Today he woke up early. She shivered when he sat up and kissed her bare shoulder. She felt the pressure of his hand on her arm and turned to look at him. His eyes asked her if she was okay. Hers reassured him that she was. She got off the bed, pulled on a robe and went to the kitchen that was separated from their living room by a waist high counter.

She put a mug of water into the microwave while a glass of milk boiled on the stove. She would add barely half a spoon of tea powder to the milk and then a whole spoon of sugar. To the mug of hot water from the microwave, it was one full spoon of instant coffee powder and a tiny sprinkling of sugar, almost namesake. He always said he was fine with coffee, but she knew he liked it better this way. Maybe because it was a quiet reminder of home. Something familiar, something comforting. Three years worth of morning teas later, he still tried to persuade her that he was fine with just a coffee like hers. She would laugh and say that he couldn't bullshit her, it had been over a decade since they first met. To that he'd smile, pull her close and say, 'Man, we're old.' She would smile back and lightly kiss his lips.

Sometimes it ended there, sometimes it didn't. She was fine with it either way. She knew it mattered to him so she made an effort to kiss him a little harder, hug him a little tighter. She didn't fake it, just made an effort to express what she already felt. Little things to make him smile.

What mattered to her was the way their breathing matched when they lay in bed together with their legs tangled, how a little squeeze of his fingers was enough to make her day, those silent conversations with their eyes when they were in crowded rooms. That was what mattered to her, the simple things that made her heart race. The moments that made her smile when she thought about them years later.

She handed him his tea and made her way to the bathroom. She never understood how he drank his tea just out of bed. For her, it didn't matter if her coffee was a little less piping hot in the few minutes that she took to brush. Today she stepped out to a cold coffee, a towel wrapped around her, hair dripping cold water. She put it back into the microwave while she untangled her hair by the small mirror hung by the bed.

Her head was full of other thoughts and she didn't notice him making his way to the bathroom or the microwave ping-ing to announce her now twice heated coffee.

"Your coffee is cold again," he said, taking it out of the microwave, "Do I reheat it?"

"Screw it." She reached over and took the mug from him. He picked up another towel from a chair and messed up her hair. She let him dry it, though she'd have to untangle all over again. "You'll catch a cold, you idiot."

"No I won't."

"Sure... Yuck. How can you drink cold black coffee..?"

"Used to it. Electricity doesn't come cheap."

--

He went down to get the bike while she locked up. Not that there was anything precious to lock up in their tiny apartment. Broken dreams of a better place flashed in her mind for a second. She didn't push them away. They didn't bother her.

The elevator was out of order. It didn't matter. Morning exercise, she'd joke.

The only thing of any value that they owned was the motorbike. He had suggested that they buy a scooter; none of the women here drove bikes. She hadn't said anything then, but he knew what the silence meant.

Riding pillion gave her terrible back pain. But she let him drive her around sometimes; it made him feel like he was taking care of her and not the other was around. It made him smile.

She lived for that smile. So she climbed on behind him, hanging his backpack on her back, putting hers between them, and making a silent promise to her aching back that she would drive on the way back.

She hardly noticed the looks people gave them anymore. He still did sometimes. She remembered that time he wouldn't turn around to face her, one night in bed. She had got up and walked over to his side and knelt on the floor, her face inches away from his. She knew what it was that upset him the second she saw the tear tracks on his face that he hurriedly tried to hide. She held his face and hugged him and told him everything would be okay. Little white lies.

He knew they were lies to comfort him. He had done it plenty of times himself. Initially she had cried a lot. Then maybe indifference or dehydration, something crept in and she stopped. He hadn't ever let it out. So it still upset him sometimes.

That nice lady at the shop was nice to her only when nobody else was around. She found it funny. About half the people around their age were okay with it. The rest of them along with the rest of the population of the so-called-city that they lived in still frowned upon an unmarried couple living together, especially since they were both of different communities.

At work they pretended not to know each other though everyone knew. Most people were too polite to ask. But office gossip can be vicious, people found plenty to talk about even if they barely acknowledged each other at work. The truth was out after a while. For a day nobody could shut up about that unmarried couple living together but the next day it was dismissed as a rumor. Maybe they were siblings, they spoke so similar. Maybe they were secret agents. Who gave a fuck anyway?

They had a few close friends that they held on to. A few from school, a few from university. In any case, their friends kept them sane. After long weeks at work when the exhaustion made the idea of sleeping on the same bed nauseating, a few words from old friends kept them crawling into bed to find from each other the warmth that they didn't realize they had missed so much.

Of family, she had more than he did. Both their parents had reacted equally badly to what they had to say, three years ago. But since about a year ago, her brother began to call up regularly, even visiting their run-down apartment once. Sometimes she spoke to her mother, rarely to her father, but it was more than what he had. He didn't have siblings so there wasn't anyone who could play peacemaker. She was all he had. So she promised the person she saw in the mirror every morning that she would do everything to keep him happy.

Except get married. She felt everything would lose its meaning once they were married. She couldn't explain it if anyone asked but that was just how it was. She felt that their little secrets and inside jokes would all just become meaningless and get sucked into an enormous black hole if they did become man and wife.

Sometimes on their way back from work they would stop by the beach. Sit in the sand, scooping ice cream with little spoons from a shared plastic cup. Stolen kisses and ice creamy bits. Other times they would walk along the beach, waves lapping at their feet, holding their shoes in one hand, holding hands once in a while with the other.

Sometimes when it rained they would climb up onto the terrace of their building. Sit there, dangling their feet off the side, looking at the people in buildings nearby. Sometimes she put her head on his shoulder; sometimes he put his on her lap. Both were equally comforting to her. To be protected and to have someone to protect.

Twenty minutes of toweling each other's hair dry, another ten to shower and change into shorts and t-shirts that they would unceremoniously throw on the floor a little later. They sat down cross legged on the floor to feast on dinner, usually rice leftovers from lunch and meat from yesterday and sandwich vegetables from the morning all fried together and thrown into a bowl to make a special sort of yummy bokkeum bap that they had grown to love. She made it best, it tasted like nothing when he tried, so if she wasn't feeling well, he made soup and sometimes fried eggs.

Then they got into bed, under the sheets, with the laptop if they felt like smashing virtual things or with books if they didn't want to talk or sometimes nothing, if they wanted to just be together.

He always fell asleep first, leaving her to battle with her insomnia. He used to try to sit it out with her but that ended with neither of them sleeping till five in the morning. She watched his chest rise and fall with his every breath and stroked his face, feeling the grainy roughness of his chin against her skin. He coughed and she got up, stepping over the shorts and t-shirts they had changed into earlier, to get the comforter from where it had fallen on the floor and covered him with it. He had never liked the cold. If he had been awake he would have protested against her cold fingers accidentally brushing the bare skin on his arms and chest while she tucked him in.

Love was a crazy thing. It made you feel things you had no idea you were capable of feeling, it made you do things you never thought you would. It made you learn things about yourself you never knew before.

In a few years they would get married. A year after that they would move into a bigger apartment to make room for the addition into their family, the one that promised dirty diapers and wailing though the nights. In another ten years, one day when their elder son was in school and their younger daughter in playschool, they both would drive to their old apartment in the bike they still kept, where they had started out, where the elevator was still out of order. They would climb up onto the rooftop and talk about whether or not they should buy a villa, more room for the children.

Time flies and it’s been another ten years. They didn’t have to worry about the electricity prices any more. One morning when their daughter tells them she has a boyfriend, she reminds him (and their elder son) that the news does not warrant a death sentence. That night she would cry, she would wish her own mother had been that way.

They’d still find time for strolls by the beach, and ice cream in the sand. She still had her insomnia; he still didn’t like the cold. She still made both coffee and tea in the morning, her son liked the bitter coffee with a spoonful of sugar and her daughter liked tea, ‘the way daddy likes it.’ He still tried to convince her that he liked bitter coffee.

But all that was to happen years later, she didn’t know, neither did she care about the future at that point.

With the little bit of moonlight filtering through the crack in the shut curtains she realized that this was what she lived for. All she really needed was to see his face on the pillow next to hers just before she went to sleep. It made her smile.

Cookies

Deep breaths. Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out. Hold.

It felt like I had been programmed. My left hand lifted up to about shoulder level and rang the bell. The shrill noise from inside made me jump out of my skin, though I knew I caused it. Its been a while since I was here last. Long enough for them to change the doorbell, I realized in some corner of my mind that wasn't freaking out.

Breathe in. Hold.

The door opened. It was his mum. She smiled.

Breathe out.

"Oh, Nathaniel! Its been so long!"

I had pre-planned and planted a huge smile on my face when the door opened so I knew my nervousness didn't show. I knew I wouldn't be safe forever, Karen knew me better than my own mother did.

"Karen! Yeah its been long! How are you?"

Yuck. I could almost see the exclamation points at the end of every one of my sentences.

"I'm good, you look good... Time for a haircut?"

I looked up at her face, a little confused. It had been a while since anyone said that to me. At least six years. Thats how long its been sice my ponytail phase. Then I saw the smile playing on her face and i realised she was referring to that time, when I was five when I'd cry at the barber's unless Karen and her son, my best friend, came with me. Well it automatically became a matter of pride when Kyle was around. You don't cry in front of other guys, especially if you know them. Well, I was five years old.

I met her eyes, we laughed.

"Here, try this" she said stuffing a cookie of some sort into my mouth. I hadn't really noticed that she had navigated me into the kitchen. That's what I used to love about being here, Karen made the world's best food and my mum barely cooked. Karen was a surgeon with the craziest working hours but but the kitchen was always stuffed with food.

I bit into the cookie and it melted in my mouth. And I followed Karen like a lost puppy, to where she was taking something out of the oven to see if there were any more.

She turned around to see me attacking the plate of cookies she'd left on the table and swooning with every bite. She laughed. "Take them upstairs. Ky's probably in his room." I nodded, picked up the plate and went up the stairs.

So there I went. Upstairs.

Outside Kyle's room, I repeated my breathing excercise. I wondered if I should knock. Decided against it. You don't knock when you enter the room of your best friend for eighteen years. Even if you guys hadn't really met in the last five.

I opened the door and walked in. And I couldn't see anything. The lights were out. Someone yelled, "Jenny! I keep telling you to knock before you enter. Someone else yelled from the opposite room, "It wasn't me!"

The lights turned on. Ow. Fuck it is so bright.

"Oh it's you."

Not maliciously. Just-oh-it's-you-so-I-didn't-have-to-yell-at-my-sister.

"Yeah. Me. And cookies." I said, picking up a pair of shorts from the bed and throwing it onto the clothes stand on the side and sitting down where I had just semi-cleared.

"Awesome"

He crashed onto the bed, narrowly missing the plate. Took a cookie and put the whole thing into his mouth.

"So good.. Mmh"

Well that was with his mouth full so it didnt sound much like it, I'm just assuming.

He looked up at me. "Where have you been?"

"Same place. You?"

"Yeah, same. Came back last week. You?"

"Yesterday."

We were both in university, a thousand miles apart. Five years ago the day he was leaving, Karen asked us if we weren't going to cry. Because it would be the first time since kindergarten that we'd be so far away from each other. We had laughed. But I know I cried on the ride back. A little bit. I needed to put my new Ray-Bans to use anyway. What better way than to hide your teared up eyes.

I know Kyle did too, I felt in the goodbye hug, an undertone of 'Bitch don't cry, I will if you do'

"I called last week."

Kyle interrupted my train ride through memory lane. Yeah, he had called. I hadn't called back. I hadn't called back in about two years. Maybe three. I had a lot of explaining to do. Let me finish the cookies first.

"Yeah... I was busy"

"Mmm.. After cookies?"

I looked at him trying to see if he was pissed off. He just seemed a little amused. It was so cool the way he still could see through me even after so long. But maybe I should just be honest.

"Uhm, no. Maybe i should just tell-"

"Hey Jackass, return my moisturiser."

I turned to see who it was that interrupted my honesty roll. Jenny stood at the door. Kyle's sister, four years younger than us. She stopped when she saw me, though I'm not quite sure why, and added in a very different tone, "Oh hi Nathaniel"

Kyle threw something at her, "Out!" as I mumbled my pleasantries.

"See you later." she smiled at me and left.

Shit. Since I wasn't in touch with Kyle I used to talk to her whenever I bumped into her, she went to school near where I used to study. Ask about Kyle, and Karen too sometimes. Then she started to call me up once in a while, I picked up about half the times, maybe less.

"She's sort of into you"

Oh shit.

"What?"

"Jenny. She's sort of into you."

"Oh."

"And you?"

"Me?"

"Do you like her?"

"Not in the way she seems to think I do"

"She said you guys met up a lot and spoke on the phone too."

"We met once. I was out with a bunch of guys and she was with her friends. She called once in a while. You know she's a sister to me."

"That's what I said. Just tell her that the next time. I know you didn't lead her on on purpose but she doesn't."

"I swear it hadn't even occurred to me that she'd consider me as anything but a brother until about three seconds ago."

"Why wouldn't she? You're so different from before."

"Different?"

And I regretted saying that the second it fell out of my mouth. I hoped he wouldn't say anything about me not keeping in touch. I wasn't ready for that conversation yet.

"Yeah. You been working out?"

"A little. You have too."

"Yeah. Not as much as you evidently. I'd fall for you" and he promptly fell of the bed.

Yeah that was lame. But that was also a joke that had us rolling on the floor in stitches for a good twenty minutes back in the eighth grade. An inside joke of sorts. We laughed. And I lost my balance and fell off the bed. Then we laughed some more.

It felt good. Like everything was normal again. Then it hit me that everything probably wouldn't be normal ever again if I did finally get around to saying what I came here to say.

I'll deal with it when it comes. Why screw up a possibility of a few more memories?

We spoke for a while. It felt good. I hadn't felt that good in, well, I'd never felt that good. Now that word sounds weird to me. Good. Goood.

Bah. It felt like we were back in grade school,  playing video games, talking about the girls we liked. Only now we were sitting around eating cookies talking about college and jobs and working out.

"So, you still dating that Katie girl?"

Well, thats exactly the opening i had wanted. Come on Nat, honesty time.

"No... Bu-"

"Oh, you okay?"

"Yeah, I decided to be honest to myself."

He looked up at me but didn't say anything. He probably figured that I had something to say.

"I never really was in love with her. I dated her because everyone expected me to."

"It's okay man, we all do shit at times."

"What I meant was, I don't even like girls."

I tried to gauge what he thought of that from the way he looked into my eyes. They gave away nothing. He was always the mind reader. Not me. So I continued.

"I figured it out about four years ago but I couldn't deal with it. Thats why I dated Katie. I thought maybe it was just a phase but then I realized that was who I was. And I freaked out. I mean, what would my mom think, you know what she's like. What would my friends think. So I just kept pretending. Then on the last day of college, someone said something about what they had achieved over four years and you know easily I get influenced by this inspirational crap so I broke up with Katie and decided to, you know, come out."

"So you are gay?"

I took a deep breath. "Yeah"

"You didn't tell me because you thought I'd freak out?"

"Kind of, I wouldn't be able to deal with it if you never wanted to talk to me again"

He looked at me for about three seconds, completely expressionless. Then his face exploded with rage. "Bitch! Eighteen fucking years and you think I'd ditch you because you're gay?!" he yelled, hitting me over the head with his pillow, blanket and everything else he could lay his hands on.

And I took it for a while because now that he said it that way I felt stupid. Then I realised, 'Fuck! It hurts!' So I fought back. We wrestled for a while then I held him by his wrists, his arms behind him, effectively pinning him to the ground.

He had probably realized he couldn't get me off when he said, "Ow. Okay, fine, I'm done."

I let go and we sat on the floor panting slightly.

Then he suddenly looked up st me and said, "So this is why you haven't spoken to me in the last three years?"

"Well, no. Sort of."

I got up and offered my hand to him, to help him up. I pulled him up and we sat on the bed, next to each other. He kept looking at me. I looked straight ahead.

"The thing is, the reason why I figured out I was gay, was because there was this guy I couldn't stop thinking about. And I know him well enough to know he'd never like me the way I liked him. And I didn't want to risk the friendship I had with him because it meant everything to me. So yeah, I tried to distance myself from him, talking less, trying not to meet him. But now that I'm coming clean..."

"Did it work?"

"What?"

"Staying away from this guy. Did it help you get over him?"

"Honestly? No, because there is always this tiny bit of hope. There is always a 'what if this could work'. The only thing that happened was that maybe I ruined our friendship, though that was the last thing I wanted to happen."

I don't know how I could just sure there and tell him how much I liked him. Maybe because he was talking in third person, it felt like we were talking about, well, a third person. Get it? Third per- Uh. Screw it.

"So, this guy.. Nat, is it me?"

"God, Kyle, the point of this story was to explain why I haven't kept in touch with you."

"So it is me?"

Me who was looking straight ahead, turned away from him, "Yeah, Kyle. It's you."

"Oh"

I didn't really have the balls to turn towards him and see his expression so I didn't. For a while. It felt like hours.

When I finally did look at him, he was looking at his hands. He looked up when he saw me looking, his eyes still expressionless. I looked down. He leaned in way close to my face and said, "Hey"

I looked up.

Three seconds later. Holy crap did he just-

"I always wanted to know how that would feel." he said, running his thumb over my lower lip, his right hand holding my face.

He laughed at my dumbfounded expression. "I like you too, dummy. I have for at least the last three years when I realized that I hated the idea of you being with anyone but me."

"So you..?"

He smiled, nodded and closed his eyes and leaned in again. This time I knew what was going on so I closed my eyes and leaned forward too.

The door banged open. "Kyle! You finished my moisturizer you have to get me another- What's going on?"

I was, once again, dumbstruck. Kyle though, looked up at her and grinned. I hoped he wouldn't say something about me leading her on-

"I keep telling you to knock before entering or you may end up seeing things you never wanted to. This can be one of those things."

Jenny stood there, for a few seconds longer. She looked at me, then at him, then at the way his hand was still on my face and made a strangled sort of noise, got out and slammed the door.

He laughed. Then looked at me and said, "Where were we?"

And I said I'd show him.

--------

Epilouge (For my satisfaction)

Ten, maybe twenty minutes later, we were lying on our stomachs on the bed, picking crumbs off the plate.

I had never been happier. Never with a capital N.

He looked at me, "Nat?"

"Hmm?"

"What are you thinking?"

I rolled onto my back, looked at him, smiled and said, "That I have never been happier"

I interrupted whatever he had to say by pulling him onto me and kissing him, softly at first. Then, you know, we got carried away.

Another ten, maybe twenty minutes later, the smell of the world's best chicken pot pie came wafting upstairs. I stopped kissing him and well, I have to admit, swooned at the awesomeness of that smell.

"Lets go" he said, got off me and off the bed too.

I got up. "Can I move in? The only time its not take-out at my place its when I make cup ramen."

He laughed and pulled me up. Then he took my hand and we went downstairs.

"Won't your mum mind? "

"Mind what?" he looked confused.

I lifted my hand, the one he was holding.

"Oh no. She's fine with it."

"I haven't told anyone."

"You don't have to if you don't want to."

I held on to the hand he tried to pull out of mine, "I think I do."

Jenny, coming up the stairs looked our hands, then at me.

Kyle looked at her, laughed, threw his arms around me and said, "Mine! You stay away."

Jenny stuck her tongue out at him, pushed him out of the way and went upstairs.

We went down to the kitchen where Karen was keeping four plates onto the table. She had her back to us when we entered but she heard us coming in and said, "Took you long enough... You're usually here before its done"

Kyle looked at me and grinned, "Yeah Ma, we got busy."

Karen turned to us and said, "Well, sit down now."

Then she noticed. The twinkle in her eye was unmistakable when she said, "What did I miss?"

Kyle, attempting to feed me a grape he picked up from the fruit basket in the middle of the table, said with his voice dripping with innocence, "Huh? Nothing at all."

I could feel her eyes on me as she waited to see if I'd take it, and the secret(or so she thought) smile on her face when I did.

Kyle looked at me, grinned and pushed me against the counter. When I had been sufficiently cornered, he leaned in and began nibbling on my lips.

"No making out in the kitchen!"

I felt my face flush, Kyle just smiled, kissed me on my cheek and dragged me to the table.

"No footsie at dinner either."

I knew, Karen probably did too, that Kyle had other plans from the way he grinned at that and said, "Okay mommy"

Sparks

"I need the Cameroon file on my desk in one hour."

"Ye-"

My reply was cut off by an angry beep.

It is one thing to call me up during lunch on a half day and ask to submit a report on a case that should be none of my responsibility. But it is a completely different thing to hang up on me after forcing me to do your work.

And so I called him back.

"Good afternoon. You have reached --'s Assistant Manager Mr. Clarke's phone. How may I help you?"

"Melissa, connect me to Andrew. It’s Kate."

"Hold on please."

A few seconds later -

"Yes?"

"Andrew, you do realize that if the Cameroon file isn't on your desk in one hour, you are the one who would get fired and not me?"

Yes, it was a long sentence but I said it nicely. As devoid of menace as that statement could possibly be.

"Katherine?"

"Yes. I just thought you should have a clear idea of the situation."

He was, simply put, speechless. Of course he would be, nice little Katie never protests. Or maybe she did. Atleast, she did, now.

He started to say something but I hung up, cutting him off. *Evil laugh* in my head. Revenge is sweet, even if it is revenge in the most trivial schoolgirl meaning of the term.

A cab driver honked as I crossed the road (at a pedestrian crossing, when the little green man was lit up)

Oh screw you. I turned and made a gesture with my hand that my mother would not have been proud of.

Aww... It’s okay. She'll never know anyway.

Because even if she bumped into me headfirst in a street, all I’d get would be a polite 'Excuse me'... Atleast, that was better than dad. I hadn't even seen him for the last three years. Well, that's okay. It was pretty much the same the first twenty three years of my life, the only difference, was that for the last three I think he was pretty mad at me.

It’s okay. I'd made a decision, might as well deal with the consequences.

As I was having these deep contemplations in my head, I made my way down the street pushing through scores of people who were pushing other people out of their way to get to wherever they had to be five minutes ago.

I pushed open a door and the smell of warm bread hit me in the face. I smiled at the cute waiter and walked over to the corner booth where there was someone waiting for me.

“Hey Nat”

“Hey Kate”

He stood up, we kissed and we sat.

“Have you been waiting for long?”

“Naah… It’s cool. What happened?”

“Bastard Andrew said he wanted the Cameroon file on his desk in an hour.”

“Why don’t you tell him to take his shit somewhere else?”

“It’s okay… One more month and I’m out of that hell hole. How was your day?”

“The same. Michael’s letting the boss’s sub thing get to his head.”

“I told you that’d happen. What did he do now?”

“Nothing to me. Yet. Screw it. How’s the headache?”

“Terrible. By the way, I called Andrew back and told him that he might not want to hang up on me if he wanted to keep his job. Or something along those lines…”

“Whoa Tiger! Finally!”

“Whatever”

“No, seriously, doesn’t it feel great?”

“No it doesn’t…”

“Liar”

“Okay, yeah, it does.”

“Oh yeah!” he said, triumphantly, pumping his fist into the air.

The waiter arrived with our orders. We began our lunch.

“Nat?”

“Hmm?”

“Group of college girls, 10 o’ clock. Apparently they like older men…”

“Older married men you mean.”

“Hey, I’d never put you in handcuffs…”

“I know. Precisely why I’m tied down to you.”

We’d been married for three years. I hadn’t seen my parents since. He was all I had, friend, lover and anything else.

Lately it’d been different. No, we still had the cheesy ‘spark’. Still bought each other roses and went on dates and had romantic candlelit nights. It still felt different. But he didn’t need to know.

Most couples who eloped had that problem. We hadn’t run away, it was just that both our families chose not o attend our wedding. It wasn’t much – close friends, good wine, decent food, cake.

Slow music played over the speakers.

It’s not always rainbows and butterflies

its compromise that keeps us along

Most people didn’t realize that the romance and the flirting didn’t last all the way. It’s just friendship and necessity that kept people together.

We still had the romance. We were both the romantic type, sometimes I’d come home to a candlelit dinner he’d cooked himself, the best wine and roses set on the table. Other times he’d come home to warm water in the bath, scented candles and sexy drinks in tall glasses. We still had surprise dates whenever we managed evenings off together, ate lunch together almost every day. And it had been that way ever since we moved in together, six years ago.

Neither of us believed that the one who cared less had the power in a relationship. We both cared, we both showed it.

But nothing is ever as rosy as it appears to be on the surface. Something that seemed perfect could be, in reality, as far from perfect as it could possibly be.

Now I’m just being dramatic.

I just wasn’t in love anymore. Sure I loved him and I loved spending time with him but I wasn’t in love. That doesn’t imply that I was faking anything though, I bought him roses when I wanted to not because it was a ritual. We had lunch together, I didn’t go because I had to, I went because I wanted to.

I don’t really know what’s bothering me. Sitting here, talking to him, I loved him, I couldn’t think of anywhere I’d rather be but when I wasn’t with him, when I wasn’t caught up in the glow of being with a man who loved me for who I am, I knew, deep inside that my feelings for him weren’t exactly the same as they were a few months ago.

‘I love you’ was different from ‘I’m in love with you’

At least to me it was.

What was love anyway?

Aww hell, who do I think I am asking all these deep philosophical questions? All I know is that I’m married to a man who loved me and that I was as essential a part of his life as he was of mine. We were all we had.

“Are you getting messed up in your head again?” he interrupted by winding thoughts.

“Yeah…”

“What about?”

“I’m not in love with you anymore”

“Don’t lie to yourself”

I laughed and my mobile phone rang. Andrew.

“I gotta go babe, see you later…”

I got up and attempted to pay the bill, he slapped my hand away from the table.

“Go. Andrew’s waiting.” He said, with an almost teasing smile on his face.

I laughed, shook my head and picked up my bag. I looked at him and I could see the words he was trying to hide.

I leaned over, hugged him and kissed his cheek.

He held my hand as I straightened up, I looked down at him, he said, “Will you be home early?”

“I’ll try, as long as idiot Andrew doesn’t ruin my evening.

“Bye”

We held hands for about a second longer, I turned and left as my phone once again began its angry buzzing.

I probably shouldn’t have left him like that. It’s okay though, maybe our thoughts would be clearer in the evening. Maybe then we’d talk.