It has been
raining for days with no signs of impeding. Every time I wake up in the
morning, tears stream down my face as if someone had turned on the tap and
forgotten to turn it back off last night. I don’t remember the last time I ate
properly, but I wasn’t hungry. Maybe a little dry in the throat - perhaps
because of the crying - but not hungry. I continued to curl under the blanket,
indulging in the warmth, and closed my eyes. My CD player ran out of battery
days ago, but I left the earpieces in my ears just because. I played the same
sad song over and over again before that until I can even hear it in my head
now, repeating itself as if it was haunting me.
Last week Brian
broke up on me with another girl from uptown. We met a month ago at a party at
a friend’s house. He was nice and of course, good looking. He cared about me so
much that I immediately got swept away by his charms. He took me to cool places
to hang out with his friends, and at that time I felt like I was the only girl
in his world. If only I knew how foolish I had become!
Of course, a
month of getting to know each other should not have been enough reason to be
crying myself sick like this. In fact, the break up with Brian is not the only
reason why I wake up every morning hating myself and everything else in the
world. It was something else that I should have seen before. It was somebody
before Brian.
Mark was my
friend since childhood. We grew up together to become like brothers and
sisters, went to school together except that he was a year older then I am, so
he was basically my senior. After graduating from high school, we went to
different colleges to pursue our studies. He loved music so much. He enrolled
into a music college so that he could become a famous musician and composer. I
went to an art school because I wanted to become a painter.
“When I grow up,
I wanna become a painter like Leonardo Da Vinci, so that I can copy his
Monalisa and give it to you as a birthday present one day. You’ll be amazed
that time until you feel like marrying me.” I remembered saying to him when I
was a little girl, naïve and unknowing of the world. We both laughed at the
time, always thinking that everything was a joke. We were both two happy little
kids.
“Well I’ll write
you a song then, the one like Pachelbel’s ‘Canon’. You like ‘Canon’ don’t you?
I’ll write you something better, so that when I ask you to marry me you’ll
immediately say ‘yes’.” He had replied. I still remember his cute little boyish
smile – a smile that I now miss so dearly.
Well, we both
graduated two months ago. He has his own band now, and they do performances and
gigs every weekend. I’ve been painting a lot for the last three years, but I’ve
never managed to copy the legendary Monalisa yet. There’s an art gallery just
down the corner from where I live. They sell some of my paintings. That’s how
I’ve been making my living for the past few months.
A week after we
graduated, he called to meet me at our usual place; the coffee shop. Autumn was
just ending and everything was starting to get cold. I put on my favourite dark
green sweater and off I went, taking two buses and a short walk before I reach
the place. He would need to take the train in order to get here, because his
place was farther.
When we were
both finally sitting face-to-face in front of each other, I realized how
everything has changed. How grown-up we have become, and how time had flown by
without us noticing. He was no longer the childish brat I used to remember, and
I’m no longer his little cry-baby sister. After our cup of coffees arrived, he
took out his iPod and plugged the earphones into my ears. An instrumental music
played after he clicked the ‘play’ button, and I recognized a familiar tune.
“It’s an
improvisation of ‘Canon’, arranged by yours truly.” He had said with a grin. I
smiled back, impressed. It was really good, and it touched me because he still
remembered that promise we made when we were just little children. The promise
that I had already forgotten about. It never really occurred to me that I
should be able to copy a legendary masterpiece such as Monalisa. By the way, I
did not find any significance of doing so.
We frequently
met each other after that, and I even went to one of his gigs at a bar
downtown. I loved it because we became best friends again. It never really
occurred to me that we could be more than just friends, until Brian came into
the picture.
Mark didn’t like
Brian at all. He said Brian looked like the kind of person you should not
trust. I agreed when he said that Brian was a sweet talker, but I never really
saw past that. I thought Brian did all that because he really liked me. When I
started going out with Brian, Mark started to avoid me. I thought he hated
Brian so much, so I stopped talking about Brian in front of him. But one day,
he found out that I’ve started to hang out with Brian and his friends, and he
became so angry that he yelled at me.
“He’s going to
ruin you, you fool! Can’t you see it already?!”
“What’s wrong
with you? What’s your problem with my boyfriend that you hate him so much? You
don’t even know him!”
“So he’s your
boyfriend now, huh? Good then. I hope he’s good in bed so that you can make
cute little babies soon.”
I was angered
with his words because I didn’t understand. I was confused. I was foolish. I
still remember how I shook with anger, and the feeling of the blood rushing up
to my head, I thought I was going mad. I slapped him hard on the face, tears
filling up the brims of my eyes, and we both stood there looking at each other
for awhile.
“Stop it, Mark.
Stop it.” I said finally. He looked at me, one hand pressing onto his left
cheek.
“So this is it.
This is how it ends.”
“Go away.”
“All those years
for nothing. All those fucking years for a painful slap on my face.”
“Shut up! I hate
you!!”
My tears fell
rapidly as I looked away from him. I was so angry and disappointed. He walked
away silently after that, not saying a word. Now that I came to think of it, he
must have hurt more than I did.
A week after
that, a CD arrived inside a white envelop in front of my doorstep one winter
morning. With the CD was a simple handwritten note written on a torn piece of
paper with words that later haunt me in my wake and in my sleep - the words
that slapped me hard when I found Brian making out with another girl in his
apartment bedroom, and the words that finally answered all my confusion and
questions all this while.
“One day, when you finally open your eyes,
you’ll realize how much you mean to me and what we both lost the moment you
told me to leave.”
If only I had realized it earlier, but it was
all too late.
I placed the CD
into my CD player that morning and listened to the one and only song that was
in it. Before I broke up with Brian, nothing made sense. After I broke up with
Brian, I understood all the pain that was in the song, all the memories and the
sorrows, everything. And that very song now also haunts me.
I pushed the
blankets away and looked to the digital alarm clock on the bedside table on my
right. 10 o’clock in the morning. I decide to log on to my laptop to check
e-mails from the gallery – actually half hoping to find one from Mark as well.
Apparently, there was no new e-mail in my inbox; not from Mark, not even from
the gallery. I sat there pondering for awhile before I reached for my CD
player, took out the CD I got from Mark and chucked it into the CD drive of my
laptop.
There were three
things inside the CD. An mp3 file that was the song, in which the title is ‘Winter
coffee’, a picture of us as little children, smiling happily and holding hands
as if nothing could tear us apart, and a little poem.
“Like kings and queens
We ruled our little wonderland
The little Mozart who dreamed of a band
And the little Da Vinci who wanted to rewrite a legend
Little promises made
Hand in hand
But no one held the crystal ball
No one held the crystal ball
When the Knave of hearts came
Put his blade on our throats
He painted the end of our game
He sang the beginning of our fall
For no one held the crystal ball.”
My tear drops
fell again as I noticed the name underneath the picture that read ‘I love
you.jpeg’.
-fin-
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