Dinner in our family is sacred because it is the time that both my parents would interrogate all the things we had done in the past few days. It's where all the question and answer portion happens on what we are doing with our lives and how we productively spend our time.
My mom, who is a great meticulous business woman, is applying all her strategic plans and techniques to all of her sons to follow and get what she wants.
She wanted me to take my pre-law in the states, at least that's what she had planned too. Two months for me to prepare everything and leave everything in here.
"How was your preparation?"
Well, I really don't know. If in terms of requirements and papers, it's all settled. But mentally and emotionally, I'm still on the middle line.
I know Mama Riela very well, she is ruthless and wants everything all aligned and I don't want any confusion and doubt on her part. That's why I said everything is fine and ready, just waiting for the plane to take me there.
This is the time where I hate myself for not caring or interfering that involves my surroundings- including myself.
Since I was a kid I have never consented to the things that I really like because I always treat everything well and say I'm fine with anything. I've been spooned with the things I want, and I had not actually cared if I need them or not. Or if I they are really the things I need for growing up.
If Joey is in my position, maybe she'll object to this and tell her parents the passion that she really wants, at least needs. Or maybe not. She would get this chance as a stepping stone to lift her family from the sunken hopes.
Joey would reject all the good opportunities out there if the expense is being alone in a country with no friends to cling on. However, she's a brave girl who would face his struggles and challenges in life because she has no choice, but to do it anyway.
But I doubt it also because she is the type of person who would do everything for her family. She would light himself just so she could give brightness to people around her. I still don't know her enough for me to argue on myself and my thoughts on what she would do. I can't daydream and rely my decisions on what she would do if she was in my position.
Not the dinner is only a torture for me in my laid out plans for my future but also it was half seminar with half lecture on me fooling around in the city.
It was really hard to be seen by people who all spread all the things a teenage boy like me supposedly doing. Rumors had been spreading that Ila and I had done it in a car in broad daylight.
It was true, I would never deny it.
It was a consensual thing made by two people to release their mind off. I just don't give a damn to it and make it the-most-significant-thing in my life, so I admitted to my mother that we did it with protection but she's not my girlfriend.
This is the only thing I can get her mad about. I am a boy that is full of mistakes in the exploration of his whole existence. I'm not the only one in this phase, everyone experiences the part of their life where they'll get curious and do the stupidest things in their life.
My father has the reputation so us, the sons, are also part of that reputation. We're like a white wall that is carefully polished and guarded so that a single dot of dirt won't taint it.
Ila texted me if we could do it but I turned it down.with a hint of warning her not to spread the things we had done. I am respecting what we did, so might well she'll do it also on her part.
Monday was a busy morning for everyone and here I am sitting in my father's office while he is busy talking to Mara and Joey is on her side taking notes of everything that my father is saying.
She looks so fresh on her damp long hair that was neatly combed at the back of her head.
Two weeks of seeing her and I've been used to this simple daily basis looks of her but my eyes are not getting tired.
The way her clothes hang on her body,the way he walks those white doll shoes properly and graciously, the way she pushes the tip of her black pen repeatedly and the beat of the clicking sound it does, and the way she exercises her neck while touching the nape.
It was weird for me to know these things. I look like a psychotic weird guy memorizing her next victim.
But I know I am in a state of mind.
The attraction I'm growing for her is maybe a sexual tension and need but it's contradicting that almost three weeks that I've gotten to know her, still nothing happens.
And this is the part where I had never seen coming. That me and her being tied together this whole summer.
I could still remember where we had stood together for the first time. The ground where our two feet had touched, the white walls who had served as the witness for my attraction to her.
"Simone,"
"Yes"
"Join Joey to check all the tickets for the upcoming Balloon Festival."
I glanced at Joey and I saw her wide black eyes dilated but her face didn't have any reactions. Is it possible that your eyes scream protests but your face remains expressionless.
One thing I have observed about her is how the scrunches on her wrist change everyday. Actually, she has this simple string black hair tie she uses for her pony but she also has scrunches she puts on her wrist everyday.
The color of his scrunches changes everyday, that's what I had observed but today feels different. The color is red, which is the same as the one last saturday.
Do these colors have a connection and representations of her personality, mood and feelings? Or she just loves wearing them.
I had to take note in my mind to go to the mall and maybe give her some collections of those scrunches. Those elegant beautiful designed scrunches on the prestigious stores would perfectly angled her arms.
She was too focused when I followed her. We entered this small room with all sides made of glass walls. It's a vacant small business room with a conference table and chairs in this building.
This is the start of me and you being you and me. Our first real conversation where it led to our strong bond friendship and long painful conversations at the parking area. The time where you found out that I am nice to be your friend and shoulder to cry on.
It was as fast as noticing how we ended up as close as the strands in your hair. As tight as the scrunches on your wrists. It was unexpected that we would be comfortable with each other despite the bad encounters.
Do the stars make us up so that we could be together forever and ever? Do they know how cringey it is to say that we met in the most unexpected way during the time of our life?
I am bound to go while you are bound to stay here only. I don't understand why destiny and fate would let our world cross together. You are like the sun and the moon, we won't see each other with our blinding light.
But we still have the stars as our proof of our love even million years away.
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