You are my Wild Rose

Seven Days Ago

“Did you say Breakup?” my hands stopped midway while folding the red sweater. I had bought it the moment I laid my eyes on it. The soft thick material felt like a warm embrace, carrying the warmth of a fireplace on a cold windy night. It was one of the nights before Christmas. I was looking for a wristwatch, something that could move with him from one of his favourite brands. But the mannequin in a red sweater under the soft yellow glow stopped me in my tracks.

As if I could see him embracing me with those arms and dropping kisses on my forehead.

But now I was packing it in his suitcase.

He was on the couch towards me, elbows resting on knees but head turned sideways, at the snow falling outside.

I knew he had heard but was biding his time to answer my unresolved concern.

“Baby, you have to understand some things here, before losing your cool.” He stood up to his full height but with slumped shoulders.

I rushed over here, hoping we would spend our winter breaks together. During the nonstop exam season piled with assignments, our free time had reduced to only a text a day. He sent "good mornings" from the ground, which translated to my "good nights" on the library floor.

I wanted this week to be special. the two of us.

But now this whole conversation made the movie tickets in my pocket feel heavy.

“It's the chance I have been waiting for. Mr Kim is a legend in our circle if he is asking for years to coach me. s**t, I would give that in a heartbeat but he is asking for mere four months and I can’t turn down the moment of my life."

"I am so happy for you, and I am down for it” I took his palms in mine and stepped closer to his spicy man cologne smell source. I wanted him to be close, feeling he was slipping away from me.

Or already had.

“But, why a break from us? We would still continue what we have been doing for the past month. You would be on the field and I would be here waiting and cheering you up with morning texts. You know we can do this. We are good at it”.

“Baby, I am sorry.” He cupped my cheeks, the calloused fingertips on my temples. The soft yet unemotional voice broke my heart into two whole pieces. “You can't change my mind now.”

He walked towards his wide-open suitcase on the bed, to complete the task, as his girlfriend, I was doing. Maybe it was the last time I could do something like that. The last time I would sneak chocolates under his layers of clothes and love sticky notes for him to find. Those would remind him of me, my smile and long for him to see me again. 

I had driven straight here when instead of texting me as usual he called up. Told me the news before even saying hello or asking about me.

The famous coach he always looked forward to shaking hands with, even for a second. He would talk about how soccer players from all over the states were assessed and only a handful was selected by the Former National Team Coach. To be privately trained by him, away in Italy, for four months and with no communication back home.

It was a boot camp and dream mixed in one for every soccer player playing under-18. It was what they started dreaming up while practising on school fields as it was the golden ticket to the national team itself.

I knew his dreams, his lust for playing like a professional and making his parents convinced of his choice in life.

It was how he had introduced himself to me too.

“You are meeting the future superstar of the nation's soccer team. You can be the first person to have my autograph, selfie or even better my personal number.”

He made me laugh out loud in front of the whole cafeteria, making me fall prey to his innocent charm. How happy we were. How carefree I was.

After a long time.

His innocence had attracted me to him. His aspirations for his goals and the respect for my privacy, made me stay in the relationship.

But now, as he is going away - carrying a duffle bag on his right shoulder. He engulfed me in a tight warm hug while asking for an apology, reminding me of his love. He wished that I would be happy and forgive him in due time, ending this last hug with a sweet press of lips on my forehead. He saunters straight for the front door without giving me a chance to say my goodbye. Without looking back once.

“Never I wanna hear the words “goodbye”, from you. There can be no goodbye to us.” His words from last summer float in front of me in the doorway, the place st vacated.

But why does it feel, it was due for so long. Why saying goodbye seems not a mistake but necessary. The sadness I expected, the shock that came with his departure doesn't seem much to me now. I feel I had prepared myself for this. A long time ago.

I meet the black eyes of the girl in the mirror. She is dressed to her toes - a pink cashmere top with black leggings and heavy boots. Hair flowing behind in long curls with purple highlights in between and shiny pink lips. All appear prim and proper, signs of a happy carefree teenager with a sense of style and wallet to afford it.

A girl who got dumped a week before her eighteenth birthday. By her first and only boyfriend, when she brought him cupcakes with stolen wine from her family’s cellar. To celebrate the long-awaited week of her birthday. It would have surprises, new dresses, countless pictures, late-night shenanigans and memories to be made for a lifetime.

The eyes should have tears, splotching the cheeks and blushing nose, except, it was not there.

No emotion of sorrow is in her eyes. She looks as she did, before arriving without any worry lines on her face.

The pain of the breakup, of separating from a loved one or even rejection is not present. There is nothing in her eyes.

I leave the room behind me while opening the bottle. She looks unaffected and indifferent to the events happening in this room.

The elevator doors slide open as if welcoming me into a phase of my life and I screw the bottle open.

What would it take for that girl to be sad, to experience pain, in the form of heartbreak and loss? What would it take for her to feel? For me to feel something because this emptiness is far more pathetic than being heartbroken.

Hoping I find something to fill the void inside. Something that makes my heart beat just once in this life.