'Till Death Do Us Part

Chapter 2 - The Proposal

Somehow, six months later, we met again at the same airport. He had just arrived in Jakarta while I was preparing to fly to the UK. I told him about my travel plans, which involved a lot of sitting in a coffee shop in Scotland and hoping to get the same inspiration as J.K. Rowling when she was writing Harry Potter.

He gave me a look of pity.

"You don't have the talent to be a writer. You're too happy."

His blunt statement made me feel like being slapped in the face. No one had ever said something so harsh to me like what he just did.

I had never finished any of my novels. Only recently, I managed to get some travel articles I wrote published in a local newspaper. My parents were super proud of me, but deep down, I knew that I was really a nobody in the writing industry.

"How could you say that to me?" I asked him in shock.

"You can't write creatively because you never have any struggles. All great artists produced their best works when they were either poor or distressed or depressed. Just look at Sting for example, now he is happy and never produced any masterpieces again." He took the brochure about Scotland from my hand.

"Wherever you go, what you are looking for will not be found. The inspiration is here." He placed my hand on his chest.

My heart trembled and until I landed at Heathrow, I still felt my hand on his chest.

Finally, I could not stand it anymore and while in England I searched for Andrea on f******k hoping to find out more about him, and looking for excuses to establish contact.

Damn, it turned out he didn't use any social networking sites. And I didn't even know his full name and the company where he worked. How could I find information about this guy???

I was feeling so sad in Edinburgh when I should be having a great holiday and a quiet time to get inspiration for writing. Finally, I went home and gave up.

Suddenly, Andrea sent me an email and asked how I was doing in my search for inspiration. I didn't know where he got my email from, but I was in seventh heaven!

I didn't think I had ever been that happy when I opened my computer in the morning and got his email.

After that, we started emailing each other frequently. Until one day, when he returned from Singapore to visit his mother, he told me his schedule so that I could arrange my travel schedule to find inspiration to write.

I would try to be in Jakarta when he came home. We began to meet like normal people, meaning that I no longer had to pretend that I hurt my feet and he must take me to visit the hospital.

One meeting led to another. When he came, we would have dinner and hang around together. It was beautiful.

I slowly learned everything about him, and I liked the man even more. I even started going back to Singapore so I could meet him. I used to go there with my mother almost every week for shopping, but I stopped going years ago since it got so boring. After all, Singapore was not a good city to find inspiration to write.

One time, when I told him that I was coming to Singapore, he said that he would pick me up at Changi Airport. I was elated because, usually, Andrea was very busy and didn't have time for trivial things.

He invited me to dinner at Clarke Quay and, afterward, we returned to his apartment. We opened a bottle of prosecco to celebrate his promotion at work. His Canadian boss had just moved back to his home country, and Andrea was promoted to fill his position as the manager in his department.

I was very proud of him. I was secretly sad, though, because until then, my only achievement was publishing a few travel articles in a local newspaper. I insisted that writing was my calling, and I was sure that one day I would be able to get the break I had been waiting for. I didn't want to waste time working at my father's company, doing things I didn't like.

That night, after two glasses of wine, Andrea proposed to me. I was scared because I never wanted to get married at such a young age. I was 25 years old back then.

And I didn't want children.

I was afraid to even think that a human baby would be coming out of my v****a, not to mention the earth-shattering pain being part of the process.

I couldn't even take care of myself! How could I take care of some weak little creatures that would drain my energy and patience? After all, the world had too many humans already ...

But ... I didn't want Andrea to change his mind. I loved and adored this beautiful soul. I didn't want to lose him because I had never felt this feeling for anyone before.

Finally, I said yes to his proposal, on one condition: I would marry him as long as he didn't mind if I couldn't give him children.

He kissed me as a sign of agreement.

***