Lilies

I always hated the rain. I hate the fact that I need to buy an extra-large umbrella to cover my tall body so the splash won’t be near enough to ricochet onto my legs. I hate that I need to change into something dry immediately or I’ll lose heat and catch a three-day cold. I hate that my food deliveries would most likely be delayed (or even worse, cancelled) due to the heavy pour. It did happen, you see, my order once got cancelled. It was the first time my parents left me alone at the house, and left me money for me to order something. I starved for hours before the clouds finally dissolved into pitch black sky. Since then, I made a sworn enemy out of the raining weather, and forever grateful that I am not living in a country where it snows.

But today, out of all days, the rain seems to be working in my favour.

“Thanks for pick up, Mikey.”

“No prob, Your Lily-ness.” Lily was going to catch the bus to go to Tyler’s New Year’s Eve party. Due to the rain, she can’t walk to the bus stop and asked me to pick her up.

“Your giant umbrella is a keeper, isn’t it? None of my clothes even got a splash on it.” Then she noticed the huge wet spot on the back of my shirt. “You sure you don’t want to change out of it?”

“Nah, it’ll be fine.”

“Didn’t bring any spare clothes, did you?”

I was about to start my car when she reached into her unusually big purse, and pulled out a T-shirt. It was my T-shirt, that I left at her place and always conveniently forgot to pick up so that I always have an excuse to visit her. She held it against my shoulder, and looked into my eyes. “Hurry up, change into this before I have to buy you paracetamol again at 2 in the morning.”

“No, I did not.” I turned to see my T-shirt on her palms, and then her face. The dim sunlight that passed through the clouds reflects on her clear, lightly highlighted cheeks. The nude-coloured lip cream I bought her for Valentine’s Day made her thin lips all the more attractive. I gazed into my reflection in her eyes, and zoomed a tiny bit out to see the nuttiness of her almond brown eyes. I caught myself just staring at her face, the face that lives in my hopes and dreams. “Thanks, Lily.” Now we begin, I thought to myself. I tried to give her a pat in the head, but then she softly warded my hand aside. Yep, so much for subtlety.

I wanted to tell her on the way to Tyler’s apartment, so when she shoots me down (and she will), it probably won’t ruin her first day of 2020, and it’ll just probably be a bad joke that we laugh about in a month or two. For all the years I’ve felt this way for her, 2019 is the only year in which I was spared the suffering of seeing her date someone else. Maybe the universe heard the ill-made resolution I made on last year’s New Year party, also at Tyler’s place.

The prolonged rain has caused flooding at certain major roads, causing immense traffic that potentially prolongs the hour-long trip from Lily’s to Tyler’s into a three-hour long journey. The rain’s gone for now, revealing the golden sunset that glares upon thousands of vehicles with partially submerged tires. Luckily, Lily had the wisdom of stopping by the gas station as soon as we heard the flood on the radio so we can relieve ourselves before we dive into the traffic.

The radio presented us with a repertoire of flood broadcasts. It was great to hear that no residential areas were impacted, but before long the presenter’s depressing voice was just a mood buster for us.

“The AUX cord is inside the drawer by your knees,” I told her. She reached in, pulled out the cord and an envelope. It had some smeared ink on it, and one can easily notice that it used to be a writing but it got wet and carried the dissolved ink with the water flow. I freaked out.

“Hey what’s this?” asked Lily with a joking tone.

Swiftly, I grabbed the letter out of her hand and slipped it into the void between the car seats, where all lost things are and I know for a certainty that not even Lily with her lean slender fingers can reach into it.

“No, it’s nothing.” It is something, obviously.

“Mike! For real thought, I am sick of you being all secretive and shit.” As she lightly pounds my upper arm. “What is it?”

“You’ll know soon enough.”

It was a letter I prepared for her birthday. In it, I wrote how I’ve felt for her all these years and I closed it with a wish that even though she might not return my feelings, I hope we can remain friends. Tyler told me how stupid that idea was, and how Lily is someone who would prefer spoken words instead of written proses. However, I was really proud of what I wrote, so I kept it around.

Lily turned to face the window. The ray from the sunset rebounds from her palm leaf-shaped silver earrings onto my eyes. I got her those earrings for her birthday last year, because she got sick of necklaces after her ex (that gave her the best necklaces) cheated on her, and because palm trees reminded her of Bali, where she was born.

I can tell she’s not pleased with me not telling her what’s in the letter. So, like any man in my situation would do, I lied.

“Tyler was going to give that to his ex, the day she dumped him. Her birthday.”

“Oh.. Poor Tyler.”

I elaborated my lie with some truths, like professional liars would. I explained with depth and details of how that day went (because I was actually there when it happened) with the added twist of Tyler, who I don’t think is even capable of holding a pen, writing the letter for his ex. She nodded along and exhaled her ah-I-see-s. She plugged the AUX cord into the port on the radio and connected it with my phone. She opened my Spotify and scrolled through my playlist.

“By the way,” she said, “did you know that when you lie, you’d tap your right index finger repeatedly and your right leg would shake like it’s making a batch of margaritas?” I stopped tapping my finger onto the steering wheel and forcibly stop my shaking leg. She laughed, but thankfully she didn’t chase after my lie.

The music started. She shuffled through my mega-playlist consisting of 200 early 2000s songs. We did not speak to each other for the next fifteen minutes or so, as she was humming to the upbeat tunes and I was too busy wondering what to make of her statement. After 20 minutes we only covered about 300 meters and it became clear that we will arrive at Tyler’s apartment long after nightfall.

Minutes left until night time, “Somethin’ Stupid” by Robbie Williams and Nicole Kidman came up. It was her favourite song, and before long it became my favourite duet song. We looked into each other and started singing. After the chorus she laid her head upon my shoulder and wrapped her arms around mine.

“Maybe this should be the new year’s event. Waiting for the sun to disappear into the horizon.” Said Lily as she tightens her hold of my left arm, her fingers wandering up and down from my elbow to my wrist.

Instinctively I let her fingers run their course and held them soft in mine. This isn’t the first time we held hands, I thought to myself. Be calm about it. Don’t screw this like you did the last four times. “Yeah, no festivities, no fireworks, just two people living in a moment of emotions.” We’re getting close to each other. She sunk into the pitch blue-blackness of my eyes, as was I in her eyes. The second chorus was coming. The time was right. Her perfumes filled my head, the sky was red, and oh the dusk’s so gray. I opened my mouth to finally say it.

“And then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like..”

Her phone rang. Of all the times Tyler could’ve called her, it had to be now. She let go of her grip and snapped back into the warm brush of reality. Took out her phone and received Tyler’s call after a small cough. Robbie and Nicole kept on singing with a lower volume, and the song passed on without any consequence. I stared into the sunset as it waved its final goodbye.

“Tyler said it’s still pouring over at his place. The rooftop plan’s cancelled, and the DJ can’t come. But it’s packed already. He said we should take the long way around the area, there’s traffic but there isn’t any flood so we ought to arrive quicker.”

We arrived about an hour and a half later, had we took the previous road it would’ve taken us another 3 hours. Not one word uttered about what did or did not happen. As we entered Tyler’s district, the heavy rain resumed, and we just sat there in silence, listening sounds of chunks of water hitting the car from thousands of kilometres in the air, eating up all the music that comes out of the radio. We parked in the basement and got up the elevator, meeting up with couple of her friends. Before long, we arrived at Tyler’s crib.

---

“Did you do it? How did it go?”

“Well I almost said the big thing and kiss her, but you had to call. Of all the times in the world, I mean, you could’ve whatsapp-ed her, couldn’t you?”

“Wait, you’re blaming me? You had an entire year to fulfil that unbelievably simple resolution of yours. How long was it going to take anyway?”

Tyler sat across me and turned my body towards him. “Your only resolution was to say I love you, right? Watch me. I love you.” He took a quick breath. “I LOVE YOU. See? Only took two seconds to say it twice!”

Tyler was right, of course. “Yeah, you’re right. I’ll say it now.” It’s 8 PM. Still plenty of time for her to process this out and forget what I said. As I got up to go see her, a man taller and bulkier than me was comfortably laying his big buff fingers on her green sweater covered shoulder, and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to leave her shoulder anytime soon. Tyler too saw this happening and dragged me to the bar. “Drink up, Mike. This is going to be a long night.”

I didn’t drink much really, I just stared at the bottles and made sure I was always looking away from her the entire night. Tyler got drunk hours ago, and by then he was mingling with anyone who even bothered to give him a second look.

I had an entire year to tell her. Valentine’s, her birthday, my birthday, our graduation, Tyler’s graduation, our numerous ‘dates’. My Shakespearean behind had to do it on a very special occasion. In the short distance I saw a woman approaching me, as it was so noisy and disco-ey I can’t really tell who it was.

“Stranger, wanna dance?” asked Lily, who I pretty sure was really very drunk. The big buff guy was nowhere to be seen.

“Lily, it’s me. You drank too much. Come have a seat.”

“Hell no, I’m not drunk. This isn’t even my third glass,” whilst pointing at her cocktail glass. “Come on Mikey, it’s five minutes to midnight. Come dance!”

I jumped up. Five minutes to midnight? What the hell have I been doing?

“Where’s the buff guy?”

“I don’t know, stalker. I think he left after I told him I’m here with my boyfriend.”

“What?”

She held both my hands and start dancing to the loud EDM. Suddenly a huge thunderbolt strikes the building and the electricity flickered. The sound of the heavy rain has never been this calming, although it was only ten seconds long. The music resumed.

“Lily, listen, I got something to tell you.”

“What?”

“Can we go somewhere quieter?”

I held her hand and pulled her through the crowds. By the time we got to an emptier area, the thirty second countdown had begun.

“Lily. We’ve known each other seven years, I think. All this time there’s something I really wanted to tell you but I promised Tyler, no, I promised myself that I would tell you this year, in 2019, but I haven’t got the chance.” I rapped through those words loudly in the hopes that she could, in anyway, understand what I’m saying. She nodded. Ten seconds to midnight.

“Lily, I…”

She pulled me close. Very close. The countdown was nowhere to be heard. For all I know and care, the lights weren’t even flickering, and there was no one in this cold, dark room but the two of us. My heart beat faster and faster. Her soft, wet, tiny lips moistened my cracked big hard lips. It felt weird, really. First kiss. Should I close my eyes? She’s closing hers’, so maybe I’ll close mine. This was it. Everything I daydreamed about for the past seven years. Is it okay to stay like this forever?

“Five!

Four!

Three!

Two!

One!

Happy New Year!”

The room erupted into cheers. People started kissing and making out. We pulled away from each other’s face, our hands still holding each other. The loud music resumed but all I hear was Lily’s loud half-screaming voice.

“Happy New Year, Mike!”

“Happy New Year, Lily!”