Lover | (Ningselle)

Stay with me, i dont want you to leave.

Aeri was right.

Things were never the same after the both of us graduated from university.

Sure, we still live two blocks away from one another when we moved back to the town we both to grew up in. That old dinner we loved frequenting o was there too, seemingly immortalized because it looked the same even after all these years. And, my god, I'm still in love with my best friend.

For a time, i convinced myself that this was enough. That even if I never admitted my true nature of emotions to Aeri, at least I would still have her close in proximity, that I would still get to hold her close, that I would still somehow have her.

And I knew that one day, I would need to learn how to outgrow her. I knew that one day, she wouldn't be so easily accessible to me, not so easily within reach, not at my beck and call. But it was something I thought it was far out in the future, something I don't have to worry now because I have her, although not in the way I truly want her. For now, I've convinced myself, that this, whatever it is, is enough.

But it hasn't been a week since we got back from our university dorm when Aeri got a call that would take her halfway across the globe for a better opportunity.

"I don't know, Ningning, what do you think?" I remember her asking me.

"You should go, Aeri," I remember telling her to go.

I wanted to be selfish. I really did. I wanted to ask her to forgo of whatever opportunities the world have to offer her to stay here with me.

To stay with me.

To be with me.

But when I look at this town and look at her, i realize that she was always made for something bigger, that she was always meant for something greater. And as much as I wanted to be selfish, as much as I wanted to tell her not to leave, I just couldn't.

All because I knew that if I ask her to stay, she would.

And how do I live with that?.

How do I live with the idea of being the sole reason that she never reached her full potential? How do I live with the idea that I withheld opportunities from her, that I stopped her from being the best version of herself that she could be?.

And so I let her. As much as it physically pained me, as much as I could feel the way my heart constricted against my chest, as much as I felt the pain from all the air leaving my lungs, I let her.

As much as I don't want her to, I let her.

Beck at the end of the day, who was I but Aeri's best friend?.

"Do you really think t that I should go, Ning?"

I'm sitting with Aeri in her childhood bedroom, helping her pack up for her big move halfway across the globe, to America.

Chuckling as I turned away to put my focus on something else, I said "Of course, Aeri."

"You know, you never look me in the eye when I ask that question."

"What question?" I asked as I turned around to face her again, I tried to act dumb with her, hoping she would grow impatient and let it go, but it surprised me to find Aeri standing there with wide, almost watery eyes, glistening under the light.

Aeri never cries.

And as much as I wanted to bolt from where I was standing and engulfed her in a hug, I just couldn't. So I just stood there, staring at her, watching.

I watched her every move. I watched from the way shoe took a breath, to the way she tried to blink away her tears, even to the way her demeanor changed into the one that showed she was serious.