this time i'll get better

chapter 10: emergency contact

"Who's that? The one you save as your emergency contact?"

Perplexed, I sat in silence.

"I mean I can read her name but it doesn't ring any bells. So who's that?"

"An old friend, I haven't got the time to change it."

"Old friend huh? She must've been someone you could rely on."

"Pretty much, it was a long time ago. Her name has been there since forever. I just didn't realize until now that I saved her as my emergency contact."

"You don't strike me as someone being that forgetful. So tell me, who's she?"

I let out a small sigh, mixed feelings of sadness and reminiscence.

"I met her a few while back and long story short, we fell in and out of love. Well, at least she did. She had to study overseas and I had to make do with whatever that is left for me here. I saved her as my emergency contact when I got Covid. I remembered that she was the first person that came into mind."

"I asked who is she, not what happened yada yada yada."

"Oh, I thought I had answered."

"You didn't, I would like to know who and how she was like that made you saved her as your emergency contact."

"She-, she is warmth if warmth was a person. She smiles with her beautifully designed teeth and cheeks. She is elegant, in the way that she dresses up, in the way she speaks, in the way she stand out, in the way her interests are so delicate and just in the way that she is. She helps a lot of people, me especially. She's kind. She is pretty much a walking angel. She got me out of a state where I thought maybe suicide wasn't a bad idea. She taught me how to love myself and others. But as time has unfolded, I failed. I-"

"You're straying from the topic, it's not about you, it's about her."

"Oh yeah, I'm sorry. Well if I have to tell you, then it would seem that I haven't moved on from her."

"Well after hearing what you have said, I know you haven't."

"Exactly but that is just the price I have to pay for not being able to be there for her. Anyways, she is pretty. And not just me being head over heels for someone who doesn't even know I still have feelings for her. But she is definitely pretty. Like if elegance is sculpted into a person, it would be her. She has so much dreams that I wished she told me. Her eyes glistened with stars, and God do I miss her voice.", I chuckled.

An awkward pause.

"Anyways, it has been 7 years since that. She is much more happier now. She's in a good place, with good company, got her pop-up stall and she's probably has good man to take care of her."

"Probably? Why is it a probability?"

"Because I'm not sure. I just read bits and pieces and stitch them together. I mean she did mentioned some guy's name in her post and I think that does it. I mean, it shouldn't be something that I still hold onto."

"So just because of that vague statement, you are really giving up on this?"

"I'm not giving up. It's just I don't feel like catching up with her. She wouldn't even want to know what happened to me."

"You just elongated my sentence."

"I'm too scared to do something. Anything. What if she hates me even more when I do. She already hates me as I am."

"You don't know that. If you know that, you wouldn't still have hopes for her."

"I don't."

"You do. If you aren't, you would have changed your emergency contact the day she left. You wouldn't have explained her in words that are so detailed, I feel like I know her too. So for your sake, keep your hope. You're too miserable to move on from her, so keep that hope alive just until you get the answer that will make you content."

"And if you could guess, what is the answer that would make me content?"

"You're hanging. In a limbo. Your feelings are harboring, lost in the deep sea. And you know that too. And you won't rest until one or two things that could answer that question of yours. Of how she meant when she said that "don't save both of your lives for the other" or she is in love with another guy. One or perhaps both of these will eventually fix and also break you. And until then, that heavy feeling, that will stay close to your chest closer than your atoms."

We sat in silence again. What he said was true. I am waiting for her. And hope that she finds a better partner. And if she doesn't, I want to be that better partner for her.

"So, before you change her name into someone else's, do you have anyone else who could be your emergency contact?"

I retyped her full name.

A teardrop falls onto my screen.

I want her back.

I want her to be the first to know whatever happens to me.

She knows how to take care of me.

Better than my own family.

But this time,

I want to be her emergency contact.