The Story of Us

Chapter 1

You know the feeling when the universe seems to know what you are up to and it is doing its best to ruin it in any ways possible? That was exactly the way I felt the moment I realized that my new year's resolution wouldn't even last a month. That and the fact that I had a little to none self-control also helped too. I did not expect that this girl from the office, who always wore headset, rarely smiled and looked at people like she could and would kill you if you crossed her ever, would be another storm brewing on the horizon. I was the love-at-the-first-sight kind of person and trust me, this was not it. When I first saw her, I remember it was the time when she passed by my desk, stomping her way with her hands on her pockets, looking bored or pissed as hell. I already knew that her name was Dianne from my friend, but we had never actually introduced ourselves. I assumed that she wasn't the type of person I would mix well with.

It should had been the end of the story. Sadly, I have already told you that I had no restraints. Though I planned to lay low that year, there was no rules against looking at pretty things. Dianne was not the only new girls in my office. She and the rest of the hospital department was being moved here and she, with her friend, were the only ones my age. Her friend, Bella, was conveniently seated near mine. She had a kind, more approachable face, though she rarely sat on her own seat. Later I found out that was because she liked to seat next to Dianne, who sat several cubicles away from mine. Like how most of friendships usually started, my first interaction with Bella was because of food. She brought a box of apple pie from home and my friends were crowding her desk like a bunch of flies. Also a fly, I got off my seat and followed suit. When she offered me one of the pies, it was only polite to attempt a conversation.

"Ah, you just got back from Rockwell?"

"Yeah," she said.

"Holiday?" I mumbled with a mouth full of food.

"No, I live there."

I actually stopped chewing to look at her incredulously. "What? That's like so far from here. You commute back and forth everyday?"

"Yeah," she gave a tired, knowing nod, like she was used to this kind of question.

"Wow," I chuckled at her expression. "You're a tough cookie, aren't you? I live nearby and it is already hard enough for me to get up in the morning."

I kept the conversation going for a decent amount of time before I went back to my desk with a full belly. She was kind of cute, I thought to myself. Though it was too bad she didn't give that kind of vibe.

***

For most of the times, things usually went really bad until it was finally over. That was the case for me at work. Three months before I finally quit my job, the flow of my projects went way up. I usually only lounged around and browsed the internet at work, with the occasional trips to roof top for smoke breaks. But soon after the New Year's holiday break, my project picked up pace and I was overwhelmed with tasks. Two of my former bosses quit, leaving me with one of the senior architect in my team to fill in the position. He wasn't too bad when he was a senior, but that didn't make him a good boss when he rose to the hot seat. He was a yes-man, the worst kind of boss you could had had. I actually wouldn't really mind if I knew that these things I had to do would really make progress to my project. But I kept doing the same abortive works because the company didn't actually have the fund to keep the project going and the big boss didn't really want to make any decisions, probably because of the former reason.

I actually started to write stories when I had worked for two months in this company. I already liked to write poems and short stories here and there since I was still in uni, but I truly adopted it as a form of coping mechanism then. In moments when everything seemed like clogging my mind, it felt like I was sorting them out one by one, by putting it into written words. Every single one of them. The residual taste of depression, the fears I had of just by being myself, the pseudo-love which left me feeling unworthy of it, my despise of being tied down into a commitment which I naively fooled into. I faced them on the eyes, acknowledged them and set them free into papers. Unfortunately, often the worst feelings in the world are the best materials for a story. Oh, the tales of how hearts were made to be broken.