As planned

Champagne would have given it away so I have decided on one of those cheap bottles of chardonnay we like to down on summer evenings just like this one. The sun lingers on at the crest of buildings bathing the park in a warm and damp orange hue. It glistens on the wavelets of the lake ,roiled with the oars of lovers rowing this way and that. A couple of swans gently drifts together , going with the flow. Hungry ducks are expectantly waiting for the checkered tablecloths to be spread around the damp and still warm grass. Families, youths , elderlies on benches both hands on the knob of canes for support, all share in the dusk engulfing the day and muffling the sound of the nearby traffic.

You look exactly the same as you did two years ago. The same green-eyed and blonde girl who gave me tentative smiles at the library and I, too bookish and shy to smile back. Look how far we’ve gone since that day when we were both picked up for a presentation on McEwan’s Atonement. We did not know each other. We met up for a night at the library to discuss how to tackle the book. I couldn’t tell you it made me cry every time I read it. You were so gifted , so precise, dissecting Ian’s prose. All I did was reading through the book compulsively, I was Robbie, you were Cecilia but there was no fountain scene, no walk through the country on a fateful summer evening. Briony-like, I would rewrite the story. The presentation was a success, thanks to you. You took the lead and asked me out. I tried to look casual but was bubbling inside. 

And tonight, here we are, watching the sun hiding away behind these red-bricks buildings while the sound of kids chasing each other on the lawn compete with the quacking of impatient birds. I ‘ve made your favorite sandwiches, lightly toasted, a slightly-grilled sliver of cheese, half a slice of ham , tomatoes and lettuce on top. You nimble on it, cross-legged , squinting against the sun gradually outshone by twinkling stars. You’re looking at the couples on the boats. I took you once there myself. Do you remember? I tried to look confident steering the boat as a Harvard champion but was only wondering if we could make it to the shore if we were to capsize. This was the night of our first fight. We have ebbed and flowed , braving storms and enjoyed placid runs until this very moment.

I have never seen your parents. I have never been able to be chummy to your dad or helped clear the table for your mother on a Sunday lunch. I wish we could have driven the hundred odd miles to your hometown, had a look at your high school, walked the galleries at your local mall. This would have been such a great weekend, barbecue at your folks on a Saturday followed by football in the backyard, a late afternoon stroll along the river where your father took you fishing as a kid ,before driving to your big sister’s for a night of drinking games and loud laughs until dawn.

And yet here we are, the sun is now diving behind the buildings and its light is slowly dying out. A football falls down where we sit and knocks down the chardonnay on my pants. The father sends his son to apologize. I tell him it’s okay. He leaves and you are already looking away. It’s been that way lately. Your silences are like innuendos. I have always been the quiet type and yet tonight I’m ready to pour it all out. You are the chatterbox lulling me with your endless work stories which make me smile even though I don’t know why. When you talk, I don’t listen, I just take it all in, all of you. But I must admit that the tables are turning. It is so awkward being the person I can’t be. It’s been rehearsed , written up all over, why can’t you be who you are supposed to be.

I can’t recall what started it all. Was it the time my battery died and you showered me with calls through the night? Or the time I showed up late for your birthday? I’m sorry I threw away your toothbrush, it was an accident. Honest. Our pictures on my bedside table has accidently slipped under the bed. Your heart-shaped plush toy scented with your perfume is jealously concealed from view at the bottom of my closet. Lipstick is so hard to wash off from glass rims. But I love you, I swear I love you.

I need you to speak. I need you to orchestrate the void, your voice has to be the symphony that deafens chaos. Never mind the kids around us shouting at the top of their lungs. Never mind the honks, the engines , the stupid ducks waiting for the crust of my lousy sandwiches. Don’t pay attention to this happy couple, her head laying on his torso , fingers interlocked, looking lovingly at their brats. This could be us if you could only speak. I need you ,I need us, the way it was. Not this new page, I haven’t written. How can you say so much with no words? I need the pen back , write you off as the old you. All I need is a word. Give me courage, give me strength. Don’t be tongue-tied, be your old voluble self again. Do it for me, do it for us.

Of course, I can’t say all of this to you. I’m shouting this out right now as I watch you looking sadly at the last boats being moored to the wooden pontoon. But you don’t hear me. I ‘m taking your hand. Please, look at me. Good. I’m fumbling for something in my pocket. Now say yes. Just say you will. But I guess you’re not quite there yet.