“I’m sorry..”
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Those were his last words to me. Those were his last words to me before he left me forever. He squeezed my hand, then let go of it slowly. I could feel his skin against mine, as he slipped away. And I hated him for that. I hated him for leaving me to live this life alone.
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We had met each other two years ago, at the then newly opened music store. I was too busy complaining for the lack of Paramore CDs in the store - while he, he said he was supposedly eye-ing me but let’s not ponder too much whether or not he said that only to flatter me. The sales girl was patiently explaining to me that they only sold classical and evergreen CDs. I picked up a CD.
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“This. Britney Spears. Is she evergreen or classical?”
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The girl smiled sheepishly at me. She quickly murmured an apology and told me to wait for her to come back. My friend, Mila, was already gesturing a ‘facepalm’ to me and urged me to leave. She was too busy trying to pull me away and stifling her giggles to notice him standing right beside her. She bumped into him as soon as she turned around.
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And at that moment, Mila instantly fell in love. She tried to say sorry but he had already smiled and said it was okay. His smile had probably melted her heart like ice under the sun because she was blushing like nobody’s business and she immediately flashed her dimples as she smiled widely. However, I felt his eyes on me, and he later told me that they were.
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He introduced himself to us as Arif and asked us to lunch. Mila and I looked at each other. We didn’t want to refuse such an offer, but somehow (and I am proud to say) Mila had some sense in her and politely told him “maybe some other time..”.
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“Oh well. Here’s my number. I’m actually new here. I’m starting work next week. If you guys could show me around some time, that’d be cool.”
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The fact that he gave us his number didn’t surprise us, but when he told us where he was going to work, we couldn’t help but be surprised. Pleasantly surprised, at that time. He was to work at the company Mila and I work. We later found out that he worked in another department, but it allowed Mila a lot of leeway to stalk - ahem, she used the word “learn more about” - him.
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He was apparently transferred from another branch. But that’s not important. He had lunch with us every Monday and we had the loveliest of Mondays despite the Monday blues people usually have. We always brought him to eat at different places, sometimes with other friends too. After four months of knowing him, I should have noticed how close we had gotten. I should have seen the signs. I should have seen how he treated me. Mila noticed it. I kept telling her it was nothing, but I knew that Mila had lost interest in him when she found out he didn’t like cats. She always told me that “cats are the essence of life. If a man cannot appreciate that, he does not deserve me.”
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So she kept pushing me to show more interest in Arif. Little did she know, I was showing very much interest in Arif - more than I ever did with any other male in the office. And a lot of coworkers noticed it. The only reason Mila didn’t realize was because she had seen me with other guys outside the office and I was definitely more open to them. Being in the same office, however, did limit my behaviour towards Arif.
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Six months from that day we had met, Arif asked me out. Alone. To dinner. And that was the beginning of our relationship.
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Arif was the perfect boyfriend. Well, Jessie J would argue that nobody’s perfect, but then there’s Selena Gomez singing to you ‘who says you’re not perfect?’ but I think let’s just say that he was perfect for me. He could handle my awkward obsession with hippos and was very supportive of me despite my lack of cooking skills.
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I’m not saying he never argued with me about things. He was a nice guy, and that pretty much gave a lot of girls the wrong idea. Not that I would blame them, but I guess I couldn’t blame him, could I? I loved him so much. So much to the point that it hurt when I saw how he treated other girls. It didn’t help that he was also attractive. A handsome man of 5 ft 8”, his broad shoulders and annoyingly sweet smile are not traits one would normally just ignore.
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I remember, after our one year mark, he brought me to dinner at the same place our first official date was. We had just gotten back from a visit to my mum’s place - the second time I brought him over to see her. After desert, he smiled at me then pursed his lips while he just looked into my eyes for what seemed like a whole eternity. I couldn’t handle it anymore and broke eye contact as I reached for my mango juice.
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“Farah…?”
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
“Awwwwh I love you too, honey.”
“I talked to your mum just now…”
“I’m sorry I lied. Did mum tell you that I’ve never been in a relationship before? Mm. I only lied to you because I didn’t want you to think I was desperate or anything like that. I just—-“
“Farah. I want to marry you. Let’s get engaged.”
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I stared at him for almost five minutes. Was he serious? Did he really just say that? I had always loved him but I never talked about marriage to him because - well because I was actually scared. ‘The Only Exception’, that was the story of my life. And he was my only exception. He was. Somehow I had managed to allow him inside my heart far enough. I had grown to not only love him, but need his existence, require his presence.
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Tears started to roll down my cheeks. I closed my eyes, and I could feel him dabbing a tissue over my cheeks to wipe the tears. “I’m sorry. We can take our time, if you want. It’s just that, I don’t want to lose you. Never.”
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“I don’t want to lose you. Never”
Those words were once the words that gave me life, that lifted my spirits even when things were going rough between us. Now, all that those words seem to do is mock me. They mock me, just as the lyrics “Maybe I know somewhere deep in my soul that love never lasts, and we’ve got to find other ways to make it alone but keep a straight face” did.
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But of course we got engaged. Somehow the management at the company we worked at was kind enough to allow it because we were from different departments. And from that moment on, I was immediately awakened from my dreams of ‘happily ever after’.
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He was still his very charming self to girls, and girls were still as flirtatious with him. What disappointed me most was that they all knew that we were engaged, but somehow that’s what made it more interesting and exciting for them. And he enjoyed the attention, it built up his ego. And his supposedly manly brotherhood supported him by saying that it’s not as if he was cheating.
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Only Mila became my refuge at that time. She hugged me every evening. Other than his words when he proposed to me, her hugs were the only things that kept me holding on to the thin strings of the relationship. By that time, she had not surprisingly gotten married to the owner of a cat sanctuary. They had met when she went to adopt another kitten, adding to her collection of 20 cats in her apartment. They both spoke ‘cat people’ language, falling head over heels for each other with agreement that Friskies was better than Whiskas.
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She kept reminding me that I had to make a choice, to keep fighting for him, or to let him go. I said that I knew I loved him too much to just let him go, but she then told me that “if we love someone, we must learn to set them free. and if they’re really meant for us, they’ll come back”. Those words coming from a person who wouldn’t even let her cats leave the compound of her house, I shrugged them off.
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Well, fast forward to the current situation, I think I should start living by those words of hers, as much as my heart refuses to.
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I guess I should start telling you about that last month before I lost him. He spent less and less time with me. We started arguing. A lot. I even threatened to break up. It was an empty threat, really. I know now how I depend on his existence. People say you shouldn’t depend on others for happiness, but they need to realize that the reliance, the dependency is not for happiness, but more of a sense of belonging, of feeling complete. And that feeling, it is not merely happiness. Happiness is only a small shard, a tiny piece of the incomplete puzzle.
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No, I’d rather not explain how he made me feel here, for it will only bring tears to my eyes - again. I actually wrote this because Mila told me to. She said it’s a good way for me to express and maybe, let go.
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Anyway, the threats and fights finally led to us not talking to each other. I felt ever so hurt whenever I heard him talking and laughing with other girls. The only real conversation we had during the last week we were together was because Mila invited both of us to a party for her kittens’ birthday. It was one of the most awkward conversations I have ever had. Even more awkward than the last conversation I had with him.
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“Hey.”
“Yeah?”
“Mila invited us to Harry, Hermoine, Ron, Draco and Neville’s birthday party.”
“Her kittens’ ?” Usually, we would be laughing till tears would come out of our eyes at how obviously absolutely bonkers Mila and her husband were. But both of us stood there silently, with his eyes staring into space. I couldn’t help but keep my eyes on him. I felt as if I was going to break down any moment. Just a simple ‘I’m busy’ or ‘You can go alone, right?’ would have broken my heart into a million shards.
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He pursed his lips and looked at his feet for a while. He made eye contact with me for a few seconds and nodded gravely. “Yeah. Sure. Text me later with the time you want me to pick you up. I have to go now.” and with that, he turned around and walked away. I stared at him for a few minutes, waiting him for him to turn around and maybe smile at me. Maybe. I didn’t even hope for a smile at that time, I think. I just wanted him to look back. And he did. For a few seconds. And I swear I could see such despair ad exhaustion in his face.
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When he picked me up, he was wearing the blue printed t-shirt I had bought for him for his birthday. It had ‘I tower over you’ printed on it. I couldn’t help but smile. And I think I was so happy that I wanted to cry, but I didn’t because I didn’t want him to feel uncomfortable. I thought, if this was going to be our last time together, I had better make it good.
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“You look pretty.” He said. I grinned at him and he smiled back. I noticed that both of us still had our engagement ring on, and I was content. We had a good time at Mila’s house. They had a cat shaped cake and the kittens were celebrated very merrily by about 20 adults and 5 children.
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By 5pm, we were on our way back. I asked him if he wanted to have ais kacang with me. He said okay and drove us to our favourite ais kacang stall. We actually just sat there quietly waiting for the ais kacang to arrive for like five minutes. We almost scared the ais kacang boy. I wanted to say so much. I had actually planned how the conversation would go. I had planned to be firm and stand by my principles. I had promised myself to be strong.
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In the end, the only words I had managed to say were “I’m sorry, I love you.” and even those were choked out with so much effort. I couldn’t stop crying. Tears streamed down my face without any sign of stopping. The last time I cried like that was when my parents got divorced. And I didn’t want the same thing to happen to us. I didn’t want to lose him. Never.
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He placed his hand over mine, and held it until I stopped crying. I breathed in slow and deep breaths. Our ais kacang arrived and we ate it, solemnly. His right hand still held my left hand as he ate his ais kacang awkwardly. I didn’t want him to let go, so I selfishly left him struggling with the ais kacang. He finally let go of my hand when he went to pay. As soon as we were in the car, he turned to me and said “I’m sorry. But I think I need to tell you this.”
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And I just stared at him. As he told me everything. As he apologized for all the arguments. As he apologized for keeping me hanging on a thread. Everything. And he ended by saying;
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“I understand if you want to end this now. I still love you, if it makes any difference.”
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Surprisingly, with all the tears I had cried at the stall, I still had a lot. And I cried all the way home. He just drove, silently. I left the car slowly, thanking him. I still wonder, till this day, how he had so much composure. How he could stop himself from shaking me to stop crying? I would have shaken myself if I was him. Hell, I would have yelled at myself for crying so much. Mila told me she’d yell at me too. In fact, she did yell at me the next day when I came to her house.
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“And you just left him? Without saying anything?”
“Um.. What could I say?! He’s going to leave me!”
“He’s got leukaemia, you idiot! He’s not just leaving you for another woman!”
“Well, he’s leaving me..”
“You love him, right? And he loves you?”
“Yes..”
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And with that, she picked up my bag and hers, and dragged me to her car. She drove me to his house and called him. Apparently he had gone to the hospital.
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That’s where I ended up, staring at his face, drained of all life. He had just let out his last breath. I still held his hand - which still had the ring on - , even when the nurses told me to let go.I just couldn’t. He had left me. Forever. And he even said sorry. I should have said sorry. I should have. Me. And all that hate for him just melted away for the love I still felt for him. He was the only exception.
The End.
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