From the Outside In

I'm little.

And not just in the physical sense, that is.

There's something about walking a street full of people that makes me feel little.  I walk by and walk blindly and nothing is ever wrong. I blend into the crowd almost too quickly and get carried to my destination even if I'm half-asleep. It's as if I can evaporate into thin air and nobody will ever notice. Nobody will realize that I'm suddenly missing, dead or just... gone.

The thing is it doesn't hurt me anymore.

I've come to accept the fact that I might be insignificant to the rest of the world.

This is not a suicide note – I do have my sister and a few people that love me as much as they hate me and they know I exist. If I'm gone, they'd know. But, other than that, I guess, there's nobody else.

And, as I've said, it doesn't hurt anymore.

--

A little push is all it takes and, again, here we go, my life passing right by me – school, friends, my part- time job, my sort-of-boyfriend, and my friends. And it doesn't surprise me a single bit.

"Iseul, if you don't stop spacing out like this everyday, I'm going to send you to a shrink!" My sister yells at me.

There's little I know of my sister. She's a criminology graduate, works as a public servant, has a dentist as her amazing boyfriend, loves blue, writing and books, hates orange, fats, winter and vampires.  Oh, and she's convinced she's a demigod. She also likes magic and alchemy. She has two rooms in the apartment – one tidy and neat which she uses whenever her boyfriend comes over and the other, with walls lined by hardbound novels and floor littered by paperbacks, which she inhabits almost everyday. And I love her.

She's the one who decided my career path – I insisted. As the usual, I was clueless and in total abandon, when it comes to my life, especially my future, so I begged her to do it for me.

Now, I'm in my last year – I'm desperately hanging on and hoping.

"I'm fine," I tell her.  And it isn't a lie.  Every single time she asks me if I'm okay, I tell her the truth that I'm fine. And I really, really am. It's just that I'm never completely fine – but this is the best I can come up with. Happiness is such a vague word. Fine is also a vague word. I can be happy and not fall into her definition of happy. So, there, I'm fine. In my own way, I'm fine.

--

"I think we should take a break. When I come back, let's see whether we'd still like to be together," was what my now sort-of-boyfriend said two months ago. And he's coming back in a few days – I can almost feel the excitement in my bones. But, no, I honestly don't. He isn't supposed to come back until spring and he's coming back early because he misses me, he says. He's going to postpone his research/vacation because he misses me.  Oh, the joy.

I'm waiting for him in the usual coffee shop that we go to – the one that serves my favorite French
macaroons along with their coffee, and I'm here to break up with him.

He beams when he sees me from outside the window and runs to me, hugs me to the point of no breathing and perhaps, breaking some bones. "I missed you," he whispers.

It makes me smile. Because it's genuine. I cannot explain why. But it is.

"Listen," I start when he has taken his order and settled in the cushioned chair in front of me.  "I think we–" "Here," he extends a box to me. "I saw it when I was in Japan and I knew you'd love it.  Open it."
A bribe. "Well..."