All Strings Attached (english)

Square One

“I don’t wanna do this anymore.”

“What do you mean you don’t wanna do this anymore?”

“I’m tired, Tyler. Tired of all this. We’ve stagnate. You’re in Sydney most of the time and I’m here. Our relationship has gone on this long merely because of the distance. Let’s admit it. This is going nowhere.”

“But aren’t we already trying to have a baby? You want a formal engagement? Marriage? What do you want? Just tell me.”

“YOU want the baby. I don’t. You want ‘forever’. I don’t… I can’t see that far ahead. I need a do-over. Re-haul my life. And I can’t do it with you. I don’t wanna do it with you.”

“Zelene, please…”

“Look, I’m doing you a favor. You can do whatever you want from this point on. Date whomever you like. Have kids, get married. Focus on your family’s company. No need to worry about little old me. I thought long and hard about this and I’ve made up my mind. You’ll understand eventually.”

I walked away fighting off the tears. Tyler and I had been friends for 20 years and started dating 8 years ago. He’s proposed 3 times over the course of the 8 years wasted on each other. Each time, I laughed at his half-hearted attempts and he would laugh it off. I never really took any of it seriously, no ring anyway. It was always something he would suddenly say while driving or in the middle of conversation. Odd that I never took any of it seriously either.

Everyone expected us to be married and to have kids by the 3rd year but years later we were still just each other’s plus one on the invitation or most of the time simply, Freyja Zelene OngKiatCo and Tyler Reuben Chen. We had only been trying to have a baby the past 2 years but because of the distance – him staying in Sydney most of the year and me in Manila – we haven’t had much luck with the baby thing. Aside from the distance, my crazy hormones weren’t helping. Our parents are incredibly supportive, being in a Chinese family - scratch that - a Filipino-Chinese family, it was very unusual for them to be supportive of pre-marital sex, all the more, a baby before marriage. I wasn’t too keen on the idea of childbearing and child rearing. It was a scary thought. I live to travel and party with my friends, even though most of my friends are now married with kids. My parents thought otherwise.

Believe it or not, it killed me to do that to Tyler. You can’t blame me though. I was, in a sense, the perfect girlfriend, not demanding, not the jealous type, no monthsary celebrations, no Valentines, no special trips, no pressure.  Our guy friends would tell me repeatedly they’d die to have a girlfriend like me. I was cool with practically everything. EVERYTHING. I even encourage them to go to bars and have boys’ night outs. I guess I changed, something in me surely did. To everyone else, he was giving me just enough.

Tyler is a great guy. He’s definitely a bit of a Gong Yoo. His 5’7” lean built makes a lot of girls swoon with just his glance. Our love story was one for the books. He wasn’t my type. I wasn’t his type. We were good friends who didn’t see each other for years then in an instant, started going out and eventually he asked me to be his girlfriend. He’s not the romantic type though, at the beginning, he was. He would surprise me but always end up ruining his surprise. Until I told him, that I don’t believe in cheesy, corny, sweet gestures. I told him that he didn’t need to do such things. As long as he loves for real, I would always feel it in my heart and vice versa.

Any girl would want to be with Tyler. Unfortunately, I have been with him. 8 years. I think maybe I want something more… or something else… I don’t know. I thought I was happy with crème brulee; it never occurred to me that maybe I wanted baked Alaska. Where can I get Baked Alaska in this forsaken town anyway?!