Iggy's Bucket List

03.2: Where Do Lonely People Go?

Chapter Three point Two: Where Do Lonely People Go?

"But she did look back, and I love her for that because it was so human."

-Slaughterhouse-Five

×××

Her white dress was no longer as white as it had been the moment she left the cemetery. The places she sat on left their marks on it: the public jeep's leather was stained with grease; the restaurant she had stopped by was the cause for the ketchup across the fleets; and the bamboo she had been sitting on earlier gave the bubblegum stuck on the back of her dress. Pretty much what happened to her life-only with more stains.

She spent the whole afternoon finishing the book. The pond in front of her was still and the trees gave off wind. The place was so serene, yet Agatha took no notice. She did not use her phone to capture the beautiful scenery. She did not stand at the edge of a platform and stare at the magnificence the nature was offering her. She sat there, reading a book that stabs her heart with every turn of a page because to her, none was beautiful ever again. Not even this beautiful fishing lagoon away from the busy city.

She reached the end and she stared at the page. Thoughts rushed into her mind all at once. Suicide. Encouragements. The selfishness of the human race. Nobodies. When she could no longer bear the intensity of emotions heating up inside her, she brought the book close to her heart and hid her small, round face behind her black hair. She blinked and everything inside her right now came out in a single tear. It made its way down her ski-slope nose until it fell onto the leaves of the book. She hugged the book tighter because it was all she had now. Something that somehow spoke up the words she was not able to say, something that gave her false images of someone caring even if she was already gone, and something that crushed her tiny, little heart-because there was no Clay Jensen who was willing to lend his ears now that Agatha had considered the lesson of the book. There was nobody.

There was a creak behind her. Agatha felt the bamboo floor shift. She lifted her head and turned. And he was there. He was there.

Agatha caught her breath as he saw his lanky figure standing a few meters away from her. He also seemed startled at the sight of her. She wiped the tear stain on her cheek and asked. "Wh-what are you doing here?"

Shock was magically wiped out of his face. He smiled, reached for his pocket and pulled out a clean handkerchief. He walked inside the cottage and offered it to her. Agatha just stared at the handkerchief, biting her inner lip. "Don't tell me you're going to push a nice, little hanky away?" he said kindly.

Is this right?, a voice at the back of Agatha's head whispered. The guy walked to her side. Agatha reluctantly reached the handkerchief and, gathering her courage, looked straight to his face. "I repeat," she said, trying hard not to trail off, "what are you doing here?"

"Fishing," he said, stating the obvious. "And then, I saw a little girl curled up like a baby in such a nice place and then I thought, 'Hey, maybe she doesn't know how to fish,' and then I walked over to ask but then you showed your face and then I thought, 'Hey, it's the little girl.'" He ended his short story with a kind smile.

Agatha opened her mouth to speak but there were no words that came out.

The guy shifted his foot uncomfortably and smiled sheepishly at her. "So," he started, looking at the edge of the table she was sitting on, and then lifted his gaze up to her, "can you talk now?"

Agatha bit her inner lip and tried to come up with reasons but she no longer had strength to do so. She was just tired. Tired of letting her chances fly. Tired of making excuses over and over again. She was not letting this pass by. It took her the hard way to learn this: pushing people away would just make her more miserable than ever. Because no matter how hard she denied it, no matter how hard she tried to convince herself that solitude will make the pain bearable, the feeling of yearning for someone always sat at the bottom of her heart.

She sighed, letting her mask fall off slowly. She stared at him and smiled tightly, averting her gaze to the white hanky she was clutching. "I am so pathetic, ain't I?" She was surprised that her voice didn't break.

He smiled, taking the seat in front her. "I think not."

"Oh, there's a gum there, by the way."

"Ugh," he said, disgusted, moving to his left.

"It's fine. I got the same, too."

He looked up to her with an amused look on his face. "Wow, so you really are talking."

She curled her lips into a faint smile, sighing. It was time to take off the mask because it was now or never. "I never really cried over a book before," she started. "You know, it's pathetic. Why would a person cry over fiction and mere words? They don't exist; the plot doesn't exist. But-but-"

"-the feelings do," he finished.

She looked at him and smiled sadly. "The feelings do," she repeated. "The emotions do. And they were so fucking real it hit me straight through this." She pointed at her chest.

"Does it hurt?"

"That's a stupid question."

"Yeah, I know but I got something that made it necessary to say it first," he replied a little defensively.

She chuckled a little. "Silly. What is it then?"

He smiled genuinely at her, and for a very long time, it was the realest thing Agatha had ever seen. "Someday, you'll read that book again and you will no longer shed a tear. That someday is the time you'll know that you've already got your broken pieces together."

"I doubt that."

"Do you? I don't. All people heal."

"I won't. I'm a hopeless case."

"You only say that."

"No, you only say that."

He smiled and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and his hands held together like a businessman. "You know one thing I learned from that book?" he asked, squinting at her.

"What?"

"It's that you have to open up to people because somewhere in the crowd of faces, someone is trying to catch your eyes and is ready to listen."

"I tried that and, well, my expectations have been failed. I looked and looked and searched for that someone but they were all looking away."

"They were looking at you but you were looking away too quickly. You are the one who looks away, Agatha, because you were looking for a particular someone."

She held her breath for a second or two and avoided his gaze.

"Agatha..."

She looked at her hand.

"Agatha, look at me."

She looked at the black and white cover of the book on her lap.

"Agatha, you have to look at me."

She looked at him.

He smiled. "See, I am looking at you."

She tried to smile, but tears fell from her eyes faster than she had thought. She wiped them hastily with the handkerchief but tear after tear still went down, non-stop. She tried to stop herself but that only made the crying worse. She covered her mouth to conceal the absurd noise that escaped whenever she tried to draw breath. She tried to cover her face. The façade she had on for a very long time was now crumbling. The guy just let her cry until she was finally able to speak coherently, although hiccupping.

"G-god, I'm so p-pathetic. Can I h-hug you?"

He just smiled and said nothing as he stood up. Slowly, he put his arms around her and she did the same. When her chin was already rested against his bony shoulder, she opened her mouth to speak. "I-I can't believe I'm h-hugging a stranger." She chuckled.

His lips curled upward. "Iggy. My name is Iggy."

Agatha moved and it was time to release the embrace. She was wiping her face clean when Iggy spoke to her, smiling widely.

"You still have it in you."

"Have what?"

"Hope-it's less, but it's never gone."