Homeless Vain

23

"I've read until chapter 10 and let me tell you, I would have read more", Kevin sounded defeated. I could've imagined him rolling his eyes, taking his hand in the air and let it fall as he sighed.

The routine had returned to normal on the day he went back to the new town he currently resided in. Everything was the same between us except, the slight change was he had been responding to my texts quite often. 

But today, in between his break, he decided to call me.

"What has stopped you then?" I asked, staring at my laptop that was full with alphabets written on the A4 size template of Google Docs.

"Work", his answer through the loudspeaker was rather stern. It almost concerned me that he didn't like his current job.

"Everything is fine right, Kev?" I just let that slip out from my mouth without even thinking. "You know you can talk to me".

"Yes, I know", now he sounded bright, seemed like he was singing at the last word. "You're the free therapist I'd never let go".

My heart skipped a beat.

Maybe - just maybe, for him saying that, was nothing but for me, it was everything. Sometimes I did think, was I being too easy in the term of love? Was I the type of person who's easily falling in love?

But maybe that's how I proved my love to someone - my love language.

Others would have said 'I love you', but I would say 'I'll be here for you.'

I managed to steal a little time from talking to him by typing those random thought into a small notepad on my screen. 

Kevin probably was thinking that I was busy or maybe he thought that he was disturbing me because I was 100% sure he heard the keys on my keyboard being slammed as I pushed them down. But please, I would scream into the phone that he didn't.

"Hey Kev", I said, not to let him had that thought. He hummed in response, attentively listening. "About the reunion....."

Just say it Ivy!

I couldn't. Not that easily.

The coldness started crawling up from my fingertips and toes, turning my whole body into frosty ice in a great slow movement. 

Well, I didn't know that I was the same kind as Elsa. Maybe my name wasn't originally Ivy but Icy.

"Ivy...." Kevin sounded worried, maybe I'd been too silent for quite long. "What about the reunion?"

My throat dried, my eyes stung. I just got this idea last night before I went to sleep and it had kept me wide awake - typical me and the loud voice in my head. 

And I knew, I had to at least try.

"What... about we go together?" I finally let it out and started rambling to make myself sound realistic. "You know, there must be lots of people and parking spaces are limited....."

I trailed off, sensing that Kevin was being engulfed in a silence he made up. 

I'm screwed.

What was I thinking? If anything, would he want to be stuck in a car ride with a girl? Let alone it's me. He never did it anyway - I guessed.

So, I surrendered before he even gave me the answer. 

Sighing inaudibly, I shut my eyes closed, harvesting some ideas to cover up this embarrassment.

"I need to ask Chanhee first", Kevin said.

Did he just.....respond to me?

My mouth hung open to say something in return but he cut me, adding, "that day we've discussed to go together with our few friends but it's not decided yet".