Martini Kisses (epistolary) ✔️

n a r r a t i v e

Every second passing by feels like an hour long. The wait is agonizing, and she doesn't even know if he's coming, if he even received her letter.

For the nth time, Milly sweeps her eyes over the theater seats and stares at the door, praying, hoping that it will open soon to reveal the lone person she wants to see standing behind it.

More seconds and minutes pass by in the silence.

Her heart's drumming against her ribcage and she—she feels nervous.

Maybe he's not coming at all.

There was no indication or confirmation that told her he would. It was her decision to wait despite it.

A sigh slips out of her lips as she casts her gaze back on the keys of the piano.

What's an hour or two for his months of waiting?

She put him through so much worse when all he's ever done is love her, comfort her, be there for her. All he ever wanted was a reply, an acknowledgment. She gave none of it.

Her chest constricts again at the flash of memories searing through her head. Every message that he sent is burned and engraved in every corner of her mind. And she remembers too well the aching, the frustration, the longing to tell him that she's there, she knows, she sees it all. In her heart, the strings of her replies resonate like dissonant notes on a broken melody.

She sent not a single one in fear that she may be making the wrong choice, dooming him to a relationship set for failure, one he didn't sign up for.

She knows better now.

The months apart helped her think clearer, better. And that message from her lolo was the awakening that she needed to finally accept and embrace herself—flaws and all.

She's still the same old fractured soul she's ever been but past the pain and grief, she can now see how wrong her decisions had been when it came to him.

Because her lolo was right.

It wasn't her fault that her parents' relationship had failed.

She is not them and they are not her. Most of all, he is not all of them.

They can forge their future differently, wiser than all of them combined. If she'll only take the chance.

She wants to.

That's why she's here now, hoping against all odds that he'll give her a chance when she refused to give him any. That's thick of her, she knows. But she needs to at least try.

Losing him was never what she wanted.

The double door creaks open. Milly rises to her feet in anticipation. Her palms are getting cold.

With bated breath, she waits as the towering figure of Kai saunters inside the theater hall. Milly steps closer to the edge of the stage, drinking in all of him.

There he is—the man she's been in love with for so long.

His dark hair, usually brushed up, is unkempt and left falling in waves across his forehead. He's in grey shirt and dark pants. His usual monochromatic attire which she'd seen countless times before but it still takes her breath away even now.

Kai goes down the steps but doesn't come close to the stage. Only stays far back, at least seven rows away from her.

Is he mad at her? It's hard to tell from this distance.

Her gaze switches to the pamphlet he's holding when he raises it in the air to her view—as if silently telling her that he did receive her song and her letter.