Reunion

The most important person in my life died a year ago and after he did, I was but a walking corpse, sluggishly moving onward and waiting for the day that I get to meet him again. My family and friends had repeatedly told me to move on, that he wouldn't have wanted for me to live this way. I wanted so badly to prove to them that, no, what we had was a once-in-a-lifetime connection, that this wound was so deep it would not heal with time. It would not even become a faded scar, it would forever ache and ooze an unending stream of blood.

I hate to admit but my memories of him were slowly becoming blurry, until they were no more. I desperately tried to cling onto them but I was forgetting. His smile, the sound of his laughter, they were all slipping away from me and whenever I tried to recall it only to fail, I felt like I was about to break.

As time passed, I thought maybe, just maybe, I'd be able to move on from that incident and stow it away somewhere in the depths of my heart, never to resurface and torment me again. I didn't think I'd be able to love another ever again as I did with him but I could still do other things-- tend to ill patients and comfort their grieving families. Hang out with friends.

And then I saw him again.

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I had known him since fourth grade. Our fathers became good friends at work, so we had started coming over to each other's houses at one point.

It was a bit awkward at first. There was a line between us that existed thanks to our difference in gender. My only impression of him was that he was the rowdy, cheerful student. We were in different classes and I was more the quiet, studious type so we had never really talked to each other before.

The first time I was at his house, I didn't actively make an effort to befriend him. I just greeted him politely and then made myself unnoticeable in the corner, playing a mobile shooting game while our dads clamored over the boxing match on television.

I thought he'd go off to do his own thing but instead he came over and watched as I lost a game. He didn't say anything, he just watched me get shot to death. I felt a bit embarrassed about my loss and wasn't sure if I should play another match.

Instead, I asked, "Do you want to play a match?"

And he eagerly nodded and gave me this huge smile, like he just received the best gift of his life. I remember thinking, I didn't know he had dimples. I wasn't one to gush over them but they looked nice on him.

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We became best friends starting from that fateful day. I didn't think much of our interaction over at his house but he seemed to be keen on establishing a friendship with me at school as well. I didn't have that many friends to begin with and he was a pretty fun person to be around, so I welcomed his presence. We lived fairly close to each other and just attended the school closest to our homes, so we ended up sticking together throughout even middle school.

In the middle of seventh grade, I decided that I wanted to go to a reputable high school. I did well on my studies so I could make it in. 

I remember announcing this to him. At that time, he looked a little too shocked.

"What?"

"Think I'm gonna go to a private high school instead of a public one. Probably gonna go with whichever one is the closest," I repeated.

I remember that troubled look on his face.

"You need good grades to get in there, right?"

"Yeah."

"Aw man, I need you to start tutoring me, then."

I was stunned for a moment, but then I realized what he was implying. 

“Sure, but don’t blame me if they reject you.”

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We graduated high school. With my help, he managed to pass all of his classes and did wonderfully on math. We were both reluctant to part but our paths were going to branch off eventually. My goal was to go to a good nursing school, while he wanted to get into engineering.

After college started, we didn't get to hang out as much. I missed him terribly and felt that just texting him weekly wasn't enough.

Then winter break started. It was a good chance for us to get together and hang out like before, with our friends.

I was happy to meet him again. He grew taller and his voice became a bit deeper. It had been several months since I had seen him, not counting the occasional selfie he sent over to the group chat. Before we knew it, Christmas was already around the corner.

Avery: heyy

Risa: heya there

Avery: u got any plans on christmas??

Risa: kinda. family wants to get together for a dinner

Avery: our family doesnt rlly celebrate christmas, i just get presents for people and stuff for the fun of it

Avery: ur family holds a christmas dinner every year, right? how about this year we do something different??

Risa: sure why not

Avery: okk i will pick u up :^) u can finally see my new car

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I notified my family that I wouldn't be attending this year's meal since I made plans with him and they begrudgingly let me off the hook. He texted me that he would be arriving pretty soon so I stood outside on my porch, trying to trap as much heat as I could within my dark, checkered overcoat.

After about half a minute, I saw a fairly small, black car pause in front of my house. The driver didn't even give me a chance to walk over before they honked. I laughed, scurried over and went around the car to enter the passenger seat.

He was wearing a formal suit, something I had never witnessed before. I didn't get to carefully observe his outfit before I started coughing from the foul scent of smoke. I exited the car in a hurry.

"The hell? You smoke now?" I sputtered.

He turned his head towards me and then widened his eyes a little, as if he wasn't the one who invited me in the first place, before stubbing out his cigarette against the car door and chucking it out through the window.

"Sorry, habit of mine. Yeah, curiosity got the best of me and I joined in on the smoking addiction with a new college friend I made."

I furrowed my eyebrows and walked over to the other side of the car to pick up the cigarette he had thrown out.

"You're littering now, too? From now on, you better avoid smoking in front of me, best if you don't smoke at all. If you do, I'll confiscate the whole pack."

"You can't do that! They're so frigging expensive. Come back inside, the smell is mostly gone now."

I scoffed and looked upon him with disdain as I pocketed the cigarette.

"So you know you're paying for a trip to death's door."

We bickered on our way to the place he was bringing me to. He drove us to an urban area that I hadn't been to before.

I was about to ask him where on earth he was taking me before he stopped before an extravagant, lavish restaurant. When we walked inside, I spotted many pale golden chandeliers dangling from the ceiling. The carpet was red and to my surprise, there were hardly any black spots on it.

How is it that of all the people who have entered this place, not a single person decided to spit out a wad of gum? Either the cleaning staff here were top notch or all of the customers were polite human beings. I was a little tempted to taint this spotless floor.

"It looks as if a meal here would cost my annual salary?" I remarked apprehensively.

"It's fine, I'm going to be paying today."

"What? I'm not going to repay you then, okay?"

"So stingy. Of course you don't have to repay me, today's my treat."

We were led to the table he booked and my eyes kept darting all over the place. I looked down at my overcoat, blue jeans and sneakers and felt really self-conscious all of a sudden. The waiter, who was dressed better than me, told us to take our time and left.

It took me a while to pick what exactly I wanted to eat and drink. He just chose whatever but I felt pressured not to pick anything too expensive since I wasn't the one paying. However, everything was exactly that: too expensive.

After the waiter came by twice to ask us if we had finished deciding what to eat, he seriously told me that there was no need to be so conservative.

"How could I not be hesitant? I've never seen such a rip-off menu in my whole life," I raged.

"I'll order for you, then."

I didn't mind and let him do the choosing. He knew what type of food I liked, anyway.

When our meals arrived, I wanted to curse. I should've done the picking-- he was too wasteful.

While I was stabbing at a piece of salmon with my fork, he suddenly got up and said he needed to use the restroom. I snickered and told him to go ahead.

I remained alone at the table for about fifteen minutes, careful not to accidentally pig out and devour all of the food. 

When he finally came back, I lectured him. 

“What took you so long?”

And then I saw what was in his hands. He laughed.

“Do you even need to ask? I happened to poop out some flowers and thought it’d make a good gift for you.”

He held out a bouquet of white and light pink peonies.

“I thought about getting roses but then I decided they were too generic. The flower shop owner told me these also mean love and they’re kinda pretty too so I figured these would do just fine.”

I was stunned and my mind tried to piece things together. We had been friends for so long but even so, I should’ve realized what this meeting meant. I was alone with a boy (how could I call him a man when I’ve seen him walk around in his underwear before he’d even hit puberty) who tried to pretty himself up for this occasion, how could I have treated it as a normal hang out? 

“Will you go out with me?” 

I had been asked out before but this was the first time I had ever felt so excited, nervous and startled. I think somewhere along the line, I had started thinking of him as more than a friend but I wasn’t sure if I was willing to ever risk causing any cracks to form in our relationship. I cowered away but here he was, doing what I could not. 

I stood up from my seat and carefully removed the flowers from his embrace. I pretended to be absolutely calm and kept on an indifferent appearance to make this daring fellow a little antsy. He looked so confident, so sure that I would accept, that I wanted to mess around with him for a bit. 

“You went through all this trouble, booking a horribly pricy restaurant, just to ask me out? Isn’t that at the proposal stage?” 

He gave me a goofy smile that infected me as well. 

“Who said I wasn’t going to propose to you? My friends all had mixed opinions about this but I thought it was plenty romantic, so..”

He kneeled down, fished out a small bag from his pocket, opened it and revealed one of those Ring Pop candies. 

“The moment you took that out you were destined to get a no,” I sighed. 

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

I had never seen him look so happy before, smiling so widely with those dumb dimples of his. I held out my left hand in front of his face. 

“Well? Put it on.” 

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A year later, on the same exact Christmas day, he told me he was going to take me somewhere special. I was somewhat hesitant about ditching the Christmas family dinner for the second year in a row but my family told me to just go. It wasn’t like Christmas was the only time of the year in which the family got together. 

He was going to pick me up at around eight, which was when the city’s beauty truly stood out, with all of the glittering lights sprinkled across the buildings and the slight bustle throughout the streets. 

He texted me that he just left his house and was on his way so I should start wrapping up. However, even after an hour had passed, I hadn’t seen a trace of his car despite constantly glancing out the window. 

I frowned. Was the traffic really slow since it was Christmas? The sky outside was overcast. Several of my friends had complained to me that it was much too cold but I liked the tranquility and coolness that fell over my city during winter. It made me feel peaceful and relaxed, while the summer heat drained my energy. 

Instead of just worrying here on my own, I decided to finally call him. I was pondering over whether to spam call him if he didn’t pick up, or to patiently wait for him to arrive. However, it turned out that there was no need for that, since my call came through after a few rings. 

“Avery, what’s taking you so long?” I complained. “Did you forget or is the traffic that slow?” 

“Hello, are you Avery’s wife?” 

It was the voice of an unfamiliar male. I frowned. Who was this person? The contact name Avery set for me must have misguided this stranger, although it was close enough. I decided to just go along with it.

“Yes, and you are?”

I could hear the other side pause for a moment, before saying, “This is the police.” My heart dropped at these words and before I could say anything else, they continued, “He encountered a car accident, please come to XXX hospital.” 

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They told me they found a beautiful diamond ring on his body. Who it belonged to went without saying: his family gave it to me. It came crashing down on me, hard. He was going to propose that we spend the rest of our lives together but then his ended shortly. It was too unfair. 

We never got to marry each other but a year later, I still thought, Hey, today’s our one year wedding anniversary. I was at his grave, wearing a thin, navy blue jacket. The coldness seemed to seep to my bones but I didn’t pay it much attention. 

I placed down a bouquet of white and light pink peonies on his grave. Somehow, it seemed both out of place and perfect there. They were bright, beautiful flowers sitting atop the most somber place in the world, a place where the person I loved most dwelled.

On my way to the cemetery, I bought a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. I took out a cigarette and it took me a couple of tries to light it. I placed it against my lips and tried to puff on it. I had never smoked before and always expressed my disapproval towards Avery’s use of it. He had always said he would quit and never did. 

I started coughing harshly and flung it away. I placed the box of cigarettes by the flowers and stood there, staring at the tombstone unblinkingly for about an hour before heading back to my car.

When I got to the car door, I paused, turned around and picked up the cigarette I had previously thrown to the ground. Sorrow wasn’t a good excuse to litter and it wouldn’t be very respectful to the dead. 

I drove to that fancy restaurant he took me to two years ago and stood by the entrance, not entering or leaving. I felt stupid, spending my Christmas just wandering around the places we had visited together. But everything reminded me of him. I had always tried to prevent myself from wallowing in misery and constantly reminiscing about the past but at least, on our anniversary, I could do this much, right? 

I was trying to blink away the tears that threatened to spring forth. My vision was becoming blurry and as I was raising my hands to wipe it away, I saw a familiar figure across the street. 

He stood there, giving me a warm smile. He waved at me and on his left hand, I saw a silver ring, similar to mine. 

To be honest, I couldn’t really believe my eyes. That was probably someone else, or an illusion I was making up in my head. He had been gone for a year, why would he be here of all places at this time? 

Even though I knew it was probably a trap, I still willingly dived into it. I had to. My legs moved on their own and next thing I knew, I was running towards him. I wanted to enter his embrace and tell him all of the things I regretted not telling him, I wanted him to reassure me that he wouldn’t leave again. 

I could hear people shouting in the distance, and I saw a blinding light to my left as I rushed over but none of that mattered. The last thing I saw was his smiling face before I blacked out, and I felt so relieved.

I could finally see him again.