Songs:
-Too Good At Goodbyes by Sam Smith
-Just A Little Bit Of Your Heart by Ariana Grande
It was Saturday night and Sophia had been waiting for this day for the whole week. She looked at her reflection in the mirror for one last time to make sure she looked perfect. With her hair in a cute messy bun, her orange-red eyeshadows making her pale blue eyes pop and the luscious red lipstick on the perfectly-shaped lips and a one-sleeved black dress hugging her hour glass body, she was a 28 year old woman looking like an 18 year old girl on her first date. Well, it was her first date after a long while.
While she was checking herself out, her phone vibrated. It was a text from her date, Alex.
"Ready for tonight?"
With a giggly smile toying on her lips, she replied with "Been ready since last week."
After she sent the text, her doorbell rang and she immediately knew that it was Alex coming to pick her up.
Excitedly, she went downstairs with her purse in her hand and with the biggest smile on her face, she swung the door opened only to have that smile turned into a jaw-dropping gasp.
"What the hell?" She blurted out to see that the man in front of her was not her date for the night.
"Surprise!" The man in front of exclaimed.
He wore a camouflage outfit, carrying a bag on his shoulders and there was a long scar on his cheek right across his dimple that was prominent as he was smiling from ear to ear. He must have dismissed the shock expression on Sophia's face as he immediately stepped inside and engulfed her in a tight hug. Resting his chin on her head, he breathed out a string of "I've missed you's."
Stunned, Sophia stood there in his arms in complete silence before she had the courtesy to return the hug.
"I've missed you too, babe," she whispered into his chest."I didn't think you would come home this soon."
Loosing his hold but still keeping both arms around her, he eyed her up and down and asked teasingly "Really? Cause you seemed like you're ready for something tonight."
Then, Sophia could not look at him in the eyes anymore and looked at her feet instead. The guilt that she tried to push down for the whole week came back, it was surreal and eating her up. It was only then he realised something was off.
"Babe, are you okay? What is it?" He asked gently. But after receiving no answer from her, he started to feel uneasy himself. "Come on, talk to me, please."
Before Sophia could think of what to say to make up to it, to apologize and to clear things up, a car parked in front of the house. Turning both of their heads to look at the man coming out the car, they both had a different reactions. The man was flustered and Sophia was nervous.
The man stared at Alex for a good 10 seconds, eyeing his perfect outfit with his button down white shirt, black pants and polished shoes, shifted his gaze towards the Audi R8 car he was driving before bringing his attention back to Sophia. Then, he understood.
"Oh."
There was no way for her to hide it now, not the guilt, not the mistake and definately not her real feelings. Jason slowly let go of his grip on Sophia before walking towards Alex with a stone hard expression on his face.
"There must have been a missunderstanding and I'm gonna have to ask you to leave now," Jason told Alex with a stern voice only an army would have earmed throughout the years, leaving no room for arguement.
With one last look at his supposed-to-be date, he nodded curtly and left.
Turning around, Jason saw Sophia's red eyes and puffy cheeks and he almost went to grab her in his arms again but his ego stopped him. He kept his calm composure despite the rage in his heart and walked passed her into their home.
Silently, Sophia followed his steps inside. She was caught red-handed, what could she possibly say?
Jason went straight to their bedroom where Sophia followed him into, put his bag down before sitting down on the bed.
"You were going on a date with another man?" Jason asked even though it was already obvious. "So you were all dressed up for him?"
With wobbly lips and shaky voice, Sophia admitted it. "I was. But I didn't know that you were coming home."
"Huh. So you thought that you can go fooling around behind my back while I was out there, putting my life on the line, trying to serve the country to keep you save? Is that what it is?"
"No! It's not that."
"Then what is it?" Jason asked, bewildered and incapable of understanding her actions. Just why?
Even if she was deathly shaking, afraid and guilty, Sophia summed up the courage and faced Jason. She put her arm around him, looked at him in the eyes and said "Baby, I know how much you love me. And you know how much I love you. But I can't keep lying to myself like this."
With that, Jason knew where the conversation was heading. He knew this would happen one day but he didn't expect it to be this soon or for him to find out this way. Then, he braced himself.
Sophia, with her arms still around him, continued. "Everytime you kiss me goodbye, my heart died a little. Everytime you walk out that door, I feel like I've stepped further away from you. And everytime you say you love me before you go, I realised I've fell out of love bit by bit." Hot tears were running down her cheeks and Jason just stared at her with glassy eyes. "I know it's unfair for you but it is unfair for me too. I have a life here and I'm trying to keep on living but I can't. I can't because I feel like I'm tied to you when you're holding the rope all the way from Afghanistan.
"You have to let me go," she pleaded him.
Jason lifted his hands to wipe the tears from his lover's face and kissed those cheeks and lips one last time before retrieving his bag and got up. "I love you, and I hope tonight you'll fall completely out of love with me because I don't want to leave you broken hearted." He said for one last time.
As he walked out the door, Sophia made no effort to stop him and he understood her.
That night, as he waited for his train to go back to his old apartment where he used to live alone, he pulled out his necklace that he had worn for the past years from under his shirt and stared at the golden pendant in his hands. It was a rose-shaped pendant with Sophia's initials carved into the leaf and it looked so soft and tender compared to his rough hands from all those years being in the battlefield.
He let her go not because he didn't love her. It was because he loved her too much to hold on to her when she was begging him to cut the rope. He saw it in her eyes when he caught her trying to go on a date with someone else, he saw it in the smile that faltered when she saw that he was the one who showed up at the front door, and he heard it in her voice when she told him she fell out of love with him. And he couldn't afford to be selfish, not like how Sophia was to him.
His heart was set. He would go back to his place, hang out with some friends and then after a month, he would fly back to Afghanistan and do his job and that was to serve the country. Only this time, it would be the first time he would walk into battlefield with no plan whatsoever to come back.
Because, really, what was here waiting for him?
-Nik.
