this time i'll get better

chapter 2: one awkward evening

Every day, I will get out from work at exactly 5:15. I'll walk with my colleagues to the train station. How the journey there will take roughly about 15 minutes. They would be talking to each other and my ears would plugged in with my sad music that I had prepared for the week.

How that has been my routine for a year now, I had never changed anything, not a trip to the convenience store or the washroom. Mainly because I didn't want to bump into people that I know or know me.

How presumptuous. No one knows me. I secluded myself from the world. I just didn't have the mental capability to be seen in this world anymore. I had my 5 minutes of fame when I was younger. Didn't quite enjoyed it as much as those who were my age.

It's just today, it was different. I decided to walk a bit later than my colleagues, I took a different route and I went to buy coffee and visit the local bookshop. I arrived at the station around 5:45.

And as I was standing like everyone else, my eyes glued to a novel I picked up from my shelf last week, I happened to feel that someone was staring at me. I could just be full of myself but I felt such eerie feeling.

And so my eyes wander around, I glance to the sides and look back. No eyes happened to catch my glance. And I look straight ahead. And a certain pair of dazzling eyes, such familiarity but somehow at the same time foreign, how it felt like home but I do not recognize the house from the outside.

I took a deep breath and calmed myself. I didn't know why I felt a tight tug in my chest, so I walked out of queue and walk down the platform to the nearest seats.

I find my hands trembling and my sweat running down my cheeks. How my entire body felt heavier, how my breathing is suffocating, for every breath it feels like I'm going to pass out.

My mind was spiraling out of control, whispering in voices.

"Was that her?"

"Everything is fine"

"Did she saw me?"

"Everything is fine"

"Did she recognize me?"

"Everything is-"

"Luth."

That voice. That silky voice but at the same time sent shivers down my spine. No one ever calls me Luth for so long, no one knows my middle name.

As I pull up myself to look that very person who is just standing 5 feet away from where I'm sitting. I met her gaze. Those kind eyes that once looked at me with sincerity and love.

"Asa, I-"

"Are you okay? You're sweating like crazy. Stay here, I'll get something for you to drink."

And just like that, I am tongue-tied, dumbfounded and star-trucked.

" what an awkward evening huh?"

"I wonder why she is so nonchalant. I mean, how is that she can talk to me like this when the last time we ever talked with each other was 8 years ago."

A hand offered me an isotonic drink, it was her. She didn't said a word, she just sat next to me. We both wait in silence for the other to start talking.

"Thank you-"

"How are you-"

"After you."

"How are you?", she asks with a smile.

"I'm doing fine, how about you?", my throat got stuck with the words I try to say.

"I am fine, Luth. Why are you stuttering? Don't tell me the big ol Luth is scared of me?", she jokingly asked.

"I'm not scared. Just, it's been so long. My words scatter whenever I opened my mouth."

"Don't be. What happened between us in the past was a lesson wasn't it? It's good to see you again.", as she stood up.

"Asa, I didn't get to say this to you. On that day.", again I stutter.

"Yes, what is it?", she stares at me in confusion.

"I was too scared to say it then, but I lost myself when we are apart. When you said don't save myself for you, I couldn't bring myself to do that. I did dated another after you but that was after I saw you were also with another. I thought you had moved on. And I was relieved. I didn't want to be the person you hate after all these years but when I saw you post that picture with your partner, I was sure that you would have forgotten about me. But then it felt weird, it's as if I was cheating on you. Even though we aren't together anymore. And I couldn't bring myself to love another as much as I loved you. And it hits me that my place in this life has always meant to be with you. And I waited, prayed that our paths would cross again and I could tell you this."

"That was beautiful. You should know, if you had only said the word, to be with me at that time, I would have dropped everything and be gone with you.", her eyes watered.

I didn't know what to say, my mind is saying and wondering, if I had just said that I wanted to be with her that day, things would have turned out differently.

"I'm sure that your train is arriving. You better get going now.", I smile as I gaze at her eyes.

"Take care Luth. I'll see you soon!", as she hurriedly climbed the stairs to her platform.

"If love happens to knock on my doorstep again, I hope it's you that I open the door to."

I sat down, my back against the wall.

A sigh of relief.

"Well maybe, someday in the future huh?"

Maybe.