I was 31 back then.
My body got consistent shape since I'm 28. Not grow fatter or slimmer. I guess maybe that's the rule of being a total dickhead. Everything stays the same until time goes down under my skin.
I am married to a beautiful wife and a little girl. That's the only last thing I asked God – I wanted a beautiful small family. My little girl around 5 years old with puffy cheeks and yellow pale skin. Cute and sweet. What I loved were her eyes. A little bit sky blue on the white side – same as her mom.
Pretty much I got everything I need and everything I worked for, happens to be utterly perfect in any way. Opening a small bar by the side of one of the city's seaside. It doesn't make much money but it was complete me to sustain my family and also able to save money and invest for future times.
One particular day, the night before Sunday, I sit at the corner of my own bar. My workers were just busy doing stuff that they had to do. Having a drink and letting soft blue hour slips in as the night approaches.
That was also the moment she coming back. Trying to reconfigure maybe taking a little chance to make everything as she wanted or maybe what I truly wanted after all these years.
She was wearing the plain simple dress – black bottom and yellowish top. As a man, I didn't know the exact type of dress that she wore that night. All I know, she was beautiful. I admit, I hardly handle myself about it.
She always is, taking my eyes from the crowd.
She comes to my table and greets me politely – it seems that we already arrange a meetup, but actually it doesn't. She sat in front of me – my worker taking orders and finally her eyes wondering around my bar.
"Nice place." She said.
"Thank you. How did you find me?" I ask strangely.
An ex-girlfriend just sat in front of your own bar. Never be a freaking coincidence.
"Everyone in the city knows about you. It isn't that hard to track you down." She replied then she smiled at one of my workers as her orders come right to our table.
"I miss you." After she takes a sip of her drink. "I really do."
"You left me. Horribly, hanging." I said while my eyes looking straight like a mad man where actually, I am trying to understand why was this such an event ever happened.
"I am 20 back then. What do I know other than my own self? I was stupidly selfish." Her perspective turns into the blue hour ocean. Her body maintains as I am. Yellow pale skin, beautiful eyes, and facial expression. Her slim fit body perfecting her appearance. Some kind of someone that you hardly mad for even the pain that she has done to you.
I took my breath deeply. "Well, I do my best. We all do our best for the things that we purely love."
"I am really sorry."
"You already sorry me millions of times before then where did the sorry brings you? Back to me." I take a sip on my drink. Trying to think more as the memory both of us started to replay.
"I couldn't help you anymore." I added, making sure no more hope within it.
"I know. You had this bar, family, you play tennis every Sunday evening and drove a nice car. I know everything about you. I cared about you." She said while her eyes stroking mine – directly into my heart.
"You care, but you didn't love. You didn't fight more. Back then, why would I stay? I would stay if you giving me a guarantee that you will be coming back. I will wait because in love for me, personally, time is just a number that I sure I can go through. But your action giving me an answer – I had to move on." I said, softly spoken.
"You mad?"
"No. I am not." Typical ladies. A man trying to explain every inch of the emotion that he felt, but in the end 'are you mad?' question rises to the air.
"My mistakes. I overshadow your love with my own ego." She said as her hands trying to find mine as I could saw.
"No. your mistake is leaving me. 20 at the time, as you said – what you know rather than your own self?" I looked into her eyes, deeply.
Eyes are confusing. It holds so much meaning and speaks more than action, more than the mouth could ever do. A set of an organ that sees the outside world but reflecting the emotion of the owner. I always attracted to women's eyes. No matter how beautiful she is, the last thing I consider if I wanted to hold a woman is her eyes. Woman in front of me here holds the record the most charming set of eyes I ever owned.
Her glasses perfecting her beautiful sweet face. I always glued by it.
I remember back in the days we both going home from weekend beach times.
We both love sunset and beaches. Sometimes, there is a day that we go almost every day in the week.
The sunset feels happily different – every single day.
We both on our way back home as the blue hour finished the show of the day. I was driving and both of our hands bound together as like there is no will or an idea that will separate us, not in an easy way. She was looking at me as I was driving through the dark night highway. I noticed because I had to change gears. It was such a beautiful moment that I never had in my entire life.
After a while, I asked her "Why do you look me like that?" In a weird shocked tone that I making, that I'm faking.
She smiled. Sweet in a sense, lovely in my reality. "I was thinking about something."
"While looking at me? My face is not your fashion catalog, Baby."
She laughed a bit, her eyes partly shut. "No. I was thinking I was lucky."
"Why so?"
"I was lucky to have you. I wanted this to be long-lasting. I wanted you. As long I live in this world." She said as she had a short look to my eyes. I should remember I was driving but I don't even want to waste this moment, even for a nanosecond.
That's the thing about it. It started to giving you hope and you planning for an unknown future. It will be such ashamed that my dream, my hope just went by painfully and not make it to my reality, our reality. It is not because we didn't do our best, no. But simply love is about two parties.
When one stayed and one disobeys – then, nothing much you could do to hold its shape.
I was back to the reality that I am in. I am 31, one little girl, a wife, a bar that I solely worked for and my ex-girlfriend in front of me. The sea waves sound bring me back to the reality that I'm in.
"I wish I could turn back time. I admit you're perfect in such a way every guy that I met – before and after be with you, never complete and understand me as I wanted and I am too, hardly does any to them. Love? Talk to the sky. I hardly give any to them and their love is beyond comprehended." She said in a tone that I know she would pay all her entire life just so she could undo her mistake.
But this is a reality where rain is cold and summer vacation is not meant to be everywhere on earth.
"After the day you dump..."
"I didn't dump you." She cuts me.
"Okay, after the day we both separated..." I hold my tone as the 'separated' words come out of my mouth. "...I have faith that you come back to me. I waited. 8 months, 1 year. Few months after that. But it seems it is true. We both enjoying the consequences of you being selfish."
She rubs her thumb at a clear glass cup that holds her drink. "Nothing much we could do now?"
"I am happy now and I believe for my future. Just like you believe that leaving me was the right choice. Consider our situation, fair." I replied.
My hands approaching the box of cigarettes, pick one and light it up.
"Fair. Fair" She said softly as her eyes look into the horizon while her hands gently reaching something inside her small handbag.
All I know, the old pocket knife that I gave her long ago already stuck in my neck.
The End.
