Love, Pour on Me

Chapter 18

“And I reckon.
That the realest and the strongest feeling is always the hardest to say.”

Chapter 18
the Greed, the Need, and the Hidden Desire

the Greed

“I MISSED you.” Gabriel can hear his heart pounding hard on his chest. He got scared by Laisa’s eyes for a moment, but he immediately swallowed that fear. “I missed you, Laisa.”

Laisa sipped her coffee, breaking their eye contact. She sat on the sofa and turned on the news. Gabriel stood still, not sure on how to act next.

“Will you continue standing there? My sandwich’s burning.”

Gabriel snapped and quickly flipped the sandwiches on the frying pan. He tried to focus on cooking, stopping himself to steal glances at Laisa who is, casually stealing glances of him too while pretending to focus on the TV set.

“Cook some tuna, and I want some tomatoes too.”

“Y-Yeah. Sure.”

Gabriel fixed his eyes on the TV while opening the can of tuna. It is now showing Laisa’s newest cosmetic commercial. After a while, Gabriel served his tuna sandwiches. As expected, it was a little burnt.

“Why are you not eating?”

Gabriel quietly asked after seeing Laisa only taking a side glance on the food. Laisa stared at the TV set for some more, then faced Gabriel.

“I saw. You got scared.”

Gabriel froze, almost literally. He tried to look at Laisa, but now he ended up totally avoiding Laisa’s gaze. Laisa took the sandwich on the plate, said a little grace and started eating.

“Go home for now. You look like someone who’s about to cross the afterlife.”

Gabriel nailed his eyes on his feet and started walking away. He opened the door carefully, avoiding to make any sound. The gate is not too far from the door but he can feel his feet already getting tired. His feet is heavy, but it’s not like he wanted to stay.

He didn’t heard anything from Laisa again that day.

※※※※※

the Need

RIA KICKED the door to her place hard. She complained her arms hurting and kicked the pile of books she’s carrying all the way, but quickly picked it up and laid it nicely on her work table. She made herself a cup of coffee and started reading the first book on the pile. She ran her eyes on the first page quickly, and did the same on the next few pages. She read an entire page then skipped the next. She read a little and skipped a few until she found a phrase she liked, which kind of surprised her since romance rarely do that to her.

She read the text silently. She then started to read it aloud, her voice growing louder everytime she reads it over and over until she shouted every words. She took a deep breath after, took a piece of sticky note, pasted it on the page and started writing.

I wanted to know love. And I don’t know if it’s possible to know it without experiencing it, but I want to wish it is possible. I am not entirely sure if the idea scares me, but I can’t blame you if you can say I do. Falling in love, I almost loathed love even though I still don’t know it that much. Love is the most beautiful thing to others, but that’s not what I saw. That’s not what I grew up with. But I sometimes grow curious on the beauty it brings and if it truly exist. Sometimes I get tempted, sometimes I get greedy.

Her hands stopped. She closed the book and closed her eyes.

“Still. I don’t want to fall in love.”

※※※※※

the Hidden Desire

“HOW WAS Gabriel when you first saw him?”

“You mean, his first impression to me?”

“Yeah, exactly.”

Laisa fixed her long black sequined dress. Today’s shooting includes a year-end ball scene and her personal make-up artist, Cindy is currently preparing her for the scene. Cindy was looking at the reference for Laisa’s hair and make-up today which was approved by the director when she talked.

“He’s so good looking. Though you can only see a part of his face at first since he always looks down on his feet while talking, but that can never hide his handsome face. Was it like that to you too?”

Laisa looked at Cindy through the vanity mirror. She’s so busy preparing her face’s not showing anything. “Gabriel can actually look at me in the eye. I wasn’t paying attention to it before so I’m not quite sure, but as I’m looking at him up to this point, I can quite see you’re right. I think he’s the kind of person who can only look at a person’s eyes only if they are close enough.”

“That’s why guys like him turns me off. Since I should be the one who should initiate first just to get close to him.” Cindy paused on what she’s doing for a while. She met Laisa’s eyes through the mirror. “Not like I’m a woman of culture or just someone old fashioned but that’s just simply tiring. It’s hard to enter the life of someone who set-up too much barriers.”

“Did you know? That I actually first met him when I was 8 and not in high school.” Laisa uttered as if she’s giving a hint on some talk show. The heavy atmosphere from their conversation was lifted as they switch to work mode.

“Really? How?”

“So I really haven’t told you.” Laisa sat still as Cindy started doing her hair. She kept her movements to minimal. “It was a summer vacation and we visited my grandmother, dad’s mom at the countryside. That was my first and last trip there since grandma died that year. Well, Gabriel’s family actually lived next door to grandma. We only realized it after looking at our old pictures.”

“Wow, I think you’re quite destined to each other!”

Laisa chuckled. “You believe in destiny?”

“Don’t know. Since we are still left with choices after all, I am not entirely sure if destiny truly exist.”

“But you’re the one who said it.”
Cindy looked at her. “But there are some things that are too grand to be a coincidence.”

“And Gabriel and I?”

A long pause came from Cindy. Her hands also stopped from working. “I told you. I’m not entirely sure.”

“But there are chances for us to be destiny?”

Cindy frowned, “You’re the one who said that.”

“Let’s just say that’s how I interpreted what you said.”
Both proceeded to working. They let no distractions come butt in this time since the shooting will soon start. “But what do you think could happen to us if I didn’t met him that early? If we met as a model and an editor, what could have change? What if he was given the chance to hide his past from me?”

“Would you prefer that?”

Laisa shrugged very carefully as to not to disturb Cindy on her work. “I just keep on thinking, that perhaps he wished he could hide his past from me. Not like it mattered to me, but it’s not my past so I can’t entirely say it doesn’t matter. There are many unfavorable things that happened to him in his almost 30 years of living. Well, maybe just like any other else. And maybe he hated that I saw those moments. That time when he was the weakest and where he pitied his self the most, he must have wanted to hide it from me. But he had no choice because I was at his side when that happened.”

Laisa locked eyes on her reflection on the mirror. That made her think she’s listening instead of talking. “Just what kind of story can he still tell? Not what I saw.”