You Captured By Me

Chapter 7

Was it possible to feel like you've
known a person for a million years
even though you've really only known each other in approximately three and a half hours? With every minute that passed as Jennie sat across Lisa in that tiny, cramped coffee shop, she felt closer to believing that yes, it can happen.

Because in that short span of time,
she came to know these things about Lisa.

When she ordered a cup of gourmet mocha, she knew Lisa's the sort of person who's not into cold drinks. She's been collecting trivia and statistics since early high school years. She describes her emotions by rating her feelings according to the ranking of countries on the United Nation's World Happiness Index. (Tonight, she said, she felt like Switzerland-the second happiest country.)

"What's the happiest country in the
world?" She asked, utterly fascinated at her mental treasure chest of information.

"This year? Denmark."

"And have you ever felt like
Denmark?"

Lisa looked at her wristwatch.

"Two hours and fifteen minutes ago, yeah." She smiled at her, licking her lips at the memory.

The exact time she was kissing me
earlier this evening at the hotel
wedding reception.

She fought the intense urge to smile, commanding every square inch of her skin pores not to blush.

"Oh and ten days ago, in front of hotel Room 2323, when this very pretty stranger"

"Shut up, Lisa."

She laughed and Jennie seriously
contemplated making her laughter
her alarm tone because she imagined it must be such a beautiful sound to wake up to in the morning and--

This flirting, god, this is not fair.

After she excused herself to order
a slice of vanilla mango cake at the
counter and returned to their table,
she found Lisa scribbling on a piece
of table napkin (She had a miniature portable pen keychain stringed together with her car keys). She thought, She's left handed.

When Lisa hastily folded the napkin and tucked it hidden on her pocket, Jennie's heart twisted into a pang of cold reality. Lisa has easily entrusted.to her snippets of facts about her, but never really confided in her about the basic things. Lisa hasn't told me yet about her family or her job or why she's even here when she said she's flying to Thailand and never coming back again. If several minutes ago, she felt like she knew her inside and out, it now seemed like there would always be things about her that she would never ever know, even if she tried to understand her for years. Of course, she realizes it's too early to know everything in their first conversation, but when she thought about her letter, she suddenly felt clueless and alienated. She keeps secrets. She kept her eyes down and focused on eating cake, suddenly running out of things to say, her own heart feeling a little bit on the verge of choking.

At past one am, Jennie sat on the
passenger seat of Lisa's silver car, after she stubbornly insisted that she would drive her home. She couldn't argue with her because even though she.drives her own car, she only rode shotgun with one of her friends for the wedding that afternoon because her vehicle was currently in repair.
Jennie, with her eye trained to study the littlest of details after years and years of wedding planning, continued
to remember all these things about
her:

The interior of Lisa's car was
meticulously clean, bordering on OC territory. And it smelled just like her too, which overwhelmed her senses yet again. She kept a clear plastic box of colorful candy gummy worms on the dashboard and she listens to an eclectic mix of songs on her playlist while she drove.

Why are we not talking about the
letters we dropped? She wondered
briefly. And upon remembrance of
her own written words, she realized: I have my own secrets too.

Outside, the moon continued to sail
alone on the starless sky, and Jennie, for some reason, wanted to tear up at the beauty of its silver light. She looked at Lisa and mutely cried out: why are the most beautiful things so far away and distant?

When they left Lisa's car in the ground parking of her condominium building and rode twenty one floors up on the
elevator, they remained in pensive
silence.

Will we ever give each other a chance to crush these barriers down? Will I ever see you again?

At her door step, they lingered, both awkwardly prolonging the inevitable goodbye.

Lisa took out the crumpled table napkin she was writing on earlier and placed it on Jennie's palm. She kissed her forehead.

"This is the best trivia ever, I promise. For your eyes only, okay?" She smiled at her.

Jennie stood on tiptoes to kiss her
cheek, something she had been
wanting to do all evening.

She smiled harder.

"Sleep well, Jennie. See you soon."

And then she walked away, giving her one final wave as the elevator door closed. She waved back.

When she was gone, Jennie unfolded the table napkin to reveal and read its contents, then laughed.

TRIVIA: Did you know that my
cellphone number is 09630289566?

Lalisa Manoban