7 AM

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The whole arena roared in euphoria the moment the small ball flew across the field out of sight. I noticed how there was a good 3 seconds when you just stared at the flying ball before Coach Pattinson yelled his lungs out at you to get your arse up and run your shit out.

So you did.

As fast as you could. All I could do was watch you flying in slow motion, while the rest of the crowds were cheering their hearts out; including your Uncle Joe who was standing next to me. You looked the most you when you were running freely, Lisa. You were you the moment you soared freely.

You were free.

You should be able to do anything as you please, so it always got me thinking about why you somehow made me the pivot of your decisions. Like that day after you scored that phenomenal home run for East High, you came to me who was wandering around the parking lot, instead of going with Jay, the guy you were dating at that time.

"I thought party at Jay's?"

I asked you, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible, like I always did back then, trying to muffle the slight annoyance in my voice. Jay invited all the baseball players and basically everyone at school to celebrate East High's win that night. But you did not look in a hurry as you just stood there eyeing me.

"You coming?"

The same question you asked me over and over every time there was a party somewhere somewhen. At first, I was okay with it; I joined you at these parties until something happened at the fourth one and I decided it was best to stop going. But you never knew why and I never told you why so you kept asking if and I kept on rejecting you still.

"You've asked me the very question since day one, Lisa, why do you think the answer will be different tonight?"

I was annoyed. It was the nth time you tried to invite me asking if I was coming, I wondered why you even bother asking, Lisa. The answer would always be the same anyway. It had always been after the fourth party I went to.

"I'll go wherever you go."

At that time I was pissed at how unnecessarily persistent you were. You could just go to Jay's party without me anyway. He was your boyfriend, while I would just be your third wheel.

"I'm going home. Are you?"

For a split second, you just stood there as I was readying myself to walk away leaving you and all your nonsense.

"I am home, Jen."

It was subtle yet I could hear it clearly. I knew what I heard because my heart rate just skyrocketing to my reddened cheeks. But my mistake for letting my annoyance turn into anger that I lashed at you. You were nothing but gentle and patient yet I just channeled my wasted jealousy on you. Then I walked away leaving you with a pained expression I created and walked away with my uncontrollable beating heart.

"You're making no sense."

Yet you were.

I knew what you meant, I was simply too scared when we were still in high school. But although I hurt you in ways to protect myself from falling for you, there was no doubt,

I was your home, Lisa.

And over the years, you build mine with a roof, room, floor, bed, and scent, somehow enough to prove me and remind me that home was never a concrete four-walled building, it was who.

Us.

But I realized it a bit too late.

Because only by the day I arrived at the building I used to call home where you no longer existed that I understood that that day I no longer came to a home. It was just a massive space; though it was still the same roof, same room, same floor, same bed, same scent, and the same color, it was no longer a home for nothing felt the same. The moment you packed your bags and went out of the door; half—if not all—the soul inside our concrete walls was also gone.

It was the coldest night, the damned fall in 1999; the end of the days where I learned how to catch the kiss from the sun on my lips and the start of the days when all the mirrors reflecting our happy faces shattered on my feet. The warmth that was supposed to be left lingering from the scenes witnessed in the very concrete walls we shared could no longer give life to the dead livings inside.

And to tell you the truth, Lisa, I did not know what living was before you.

What was I before you?

You were the air I inhaled at every second of my waking moments. Falling in love with you was the easiest thing to do yet it was the hardest; the presence of your being, my mind that had been engraved with your motion, the sound of my name falling from your lips vibrated in the most addicting sound covered in aged wine, and all these little things you did that made my heart soar to the ninth sky.

The hardest to fathom; how to catch a cloud and pin it down, keeping a shooting star in a bottle of a jar to light up my dark nights, chasing shadows when the sun was shying away behind the clouds, like an unsolved puzzle.

You were an enigma to me. I spent years trying to crack this one puzzle of life, Lisa. That was why all I did was wonder on my own when it came to you. I was so immersed in completing this one messy puzzle that I did not notice that you were the puzzle piece for me all along; the one that completed me. I missed it, I missed you, who was standing right there opening your arms, waiting for me who had been standing at the edge of a cliff ready to jump but too scared to fall.

You knew in your sleep when you visioned yourself jumping and your heart fell into the pit of your stomach; all you knew was if you flew then you were dreaming and if you fell then you were having a nightmare.

You were a dream veiled in a nightmare, Lisa.

Because being in love with you made me feel like a meteor falling mid-air, crashing through the atmosphere, getting ready to hit the surface of the earth. While the truth was being in love with you was actually being launched through the atmosphere, all the way to a new galaxy outside the milky way.

I was too scared of falling I forgot that I could have flown.

So there I was at 7 AM on a Sunday, months after you left, finally letting everything sink in, paying my overdue cowardice; choking on my coffee, gasping for air, reaching for you who were no longer there. I knew what it meant. Because you no longer cared. There was no doubt,

I was no longer your home, Lisa.

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