2019

"What are you doing here?"
"It's your birthday today.
And I haven't seen you in a while, thought I'd stop by."

How does he makes it sound like nothing?
I don't get it.
I trembled so much to open my mouth, yet yours seemed so.....easy.

"You better go."
"Wait. Can we talk?"
"Now's not a great timing." I said it as I shut my door. I can't take it.


He holds the door, putting his wrist on the gap so I won't be able to close it.
I can see his left hand quite clearly, but it feels like a hand of a stranger now.
"I know your last memory of me wasn't exactly great for you to recall, but can you give me a chance to explain?"
"A little late for that now, don't you think?"
"You know I owe you an explanation."
"I don't need that anymore."


"I was dying."

I paused. Letting him to open the door wide.

"I was sick. Several months was all I had."

I just stood there. Silence. I was speechless for a while.
"Why don't you tell me?"
"Can we talk inside?"

"Yeah. Sure."

We went inside. And now I am not sure how to feel.
We sat on the couch, and he told me he wasn't leaving town that day.
He got treated in a hospital, isolated from the city and so far away.
He said it wasn't necessary, to be hospitalized that far. But he didn't want me to find out, or leaving the possibility of me meeting him, looking at his pale skin, he said it would hurt him to see me. And it would hurt me to see him.

I wanted to be angry, but how could I?

"I thought by doing that, you would just hate me. It's painful enough for me having to leave you, but I couldn't handle the thought of you knowing that I was going to die. It's just better for the both of us if you just remember me as a ****** bag than a disease."

I tried to understand. But I can't lie it's still very hard to see him after all these times. I missed him,
so much.
He reaches for my hand and looks at me in the eye. I tried so hard not to cry.

"All that matters is that you're okay now. Right?"
"Yeah. It was still a long journey, but I am okay now."

"But there is still one thing I need to tell you."

And he tells me when he was in the hospital, he met someone.
It was a coincidence. She was visiting her mom and saw him across her mom's room. Her mom had the same disease he had.
They already knew each other, well probably knew quite a while.
She also didn't know he was sick at first, well no one did.
He asked her to keep it that way, he didn't want anyone to know.

"And within the next week, she always visited me whenever she visited her mother."

Then weeks turned into months. He said at one point, he was actually getting better. Then suddenly, he went all bad again. Dying again. Over and over again. That's why he still didn't want me to know. Until he was actually cured for good, he said.


Then her mother passed away a year ago. She was very sad and torn. I feel sorry for her. I remember one of my best friend's mom also passed away a year ago. Can't imagine what she had to go through.

Then he said she was always by his side ever since. All those time hard times. Through every pain he's in, and every hopes and tears he had. Not me.

“She was there for me through my toughest times somehow. I still miss you so much, but I admit it that it made me think about her sometimes. And the more time went by, we.....cared for each other.”

I can see he is trying not to make it a big deal. But it is. I know exactly the word he was looking for, but I wish it is not what I think it is.

But in his eyes, I knew it is not just caring. That this was what he wanted to explain. Not the sick and dying, not the pain he left me, but to tell me that I am no longer in this picture.

“It's more than that, doesn’t it?”
I tried really hard to say it out loud without cracking my voice, but I know he knows.

And in his hesitation, he knows I know.

I,
smiled.
I wish I could be mad and furious. But for what?
I love him too much for that.
I am holding my tears back that I bit my lip so hard at this point that it felt numb.

"Please say something."

What am I supposed to say?


"Sorry I am just absorbing all of this, haha.
Who is this girl?
Can you show me?"


Stupid. Out of all the questions I could ask, why that?


"You know her."
"Do I?"

Apparently, I do.
Remember my best friend, who said she was coming back to return my stuff?


"Oh."
"Please don't be mad. It's not her fault.
Everything was just quite, happens."

Then she shows up at my front door, knocking. And when I open it, I feel like I am looking at a completely different person right now.

"I'm sorry.
You deserve to be mad or say anything to me, and we don't want to go behind your back.
He just got out of the hospital this very day. And we thought it's best that we let you know, right away."


That's the problem.
Now, I don't know what I feel. Or what I should feel.
I want to blame everything on him, on them, on myself, and my feelings are all over the place.
But I know they don't mean to hurt me.
I know them too well for that.
I know that he wants the best for me, so does she.
That's what's driving me crazy.
That I never had the chance,
to be by his side.
Never had the chance,
other than blaming on myself.
What did I do wrong?
Am I not enough?
All those time,
it should've been me.

It could've been me.

Then I close my eyes for a while,
'cause everything becomes very blurry.

Hoping all of this is just a dream.
Though I know the pain now is more than real.
It's stabbing me.

It's my birthday today.
And my wish still stays the same.


–

What would you wish for?"

I took a long pause, staring at the candles,
and I say without hesitance.

"Amnesia."

And blew out the candle with both of my eyes closed,
hoping the moment the fire burns out,
so does the memory of him.