It was then that the world appeared pause to me. As if everything had freeze except my Grace.
Theo stood a little distance away, surrounded by colleagues, talking casually, as if he belonged effortlessly to this side of life—light, normal, untouched. I saw him smiling…. he seemed cheerful with them. How fortunate of a site this is.
But something at that moment shifted inside me..... just slightly. How...How come he never smiled like that in front of me?...
My gaze were still lingering at him. Tracing. Memorizing. My mind capturing the beautiful site of my man in traces—no matter how normal he dress, it's still a pleasure to eyes. His hairs were down this time, God I am fortunate to have seen him this way out. how does he exist like this.
A sudden thought slipped in. 'If he ....'
I looked away. Immediately fixing my gaze back to my plate. "Oh my goodness..." I murmured under my breath, lowering, my gaze back to the plate. "Not again."
A faint, almost helpless smile tugged my lips. "Still the day is fine to have ran into you." I murmured back looking at the phone trying to control all my butterflies in stomach. "Call it fate na….." I bit my tongue, trying to pull myself back from all the delusion.
Don't look again. Don't….. my mind screamed hard. But my heart is too shamless to have ever agreed—I looked again.
Just for a second.
But this time—his eyes met mine. There was a pause. Unavoidable. Sharp one.
I froze for half a heartbeat before looking down again. Lets say nothing happened. No, I don't wish to pretend such.
Ten minutes passed. Maybe more. I pulled myself so hard for not lifting my gaze again. Forcefully looking at the food, on my phone, on anything.
Then—movement. Closer.
My fingers tightened slightly around the fork. No...
The chair across from me shifted. Someone sat down. I could feel the presence of that someone.
I didn't look up immediately. Wasn't required. Knew already, it was him....
"Well....." his voice came low, controlled, carrying something sharp beneath its calm surface. "How've you been?"
I slowly lifted my gaze. Met his eyes. Closer now. Too close.
"Where were you last night?"
There was no smile across Theo's face now, not even a slightest remain of what he had earlier with colleagues. His eyes locked on me, piercing hard with enough tension. His gaze aiming through those fallen lashes—motionless, expressionless. He never wasted any expression on things he didn't consider worth the effort—and I was one.
I held it. why wouldn't I?
A faint smile lingered on my lips, soft enough to pass as harmless, controlled enough to hide everything beneath it.
"Speak," his voice came steady, "where you where?" there wasn't any curiosity that tone reflected. Only intend.
I let out a quiet breath, almost amused, fingers idly tracing the edge of my glass. "Do I report my whereabouts now?" I murmured. "Since when did I became your concern?"
His jaw tightened—just slightly.
"Don't paly games here," he spoke leaning back just enough to create distance—but not enough to disengage. "If you have planned to play one, play it well." his eyes still stuck on mine.
"Are you perhaps worried about me that—"
"When did such bad days of mine came." He cut strikingly, almost letting out a joking laugh. Predictable of him. Still annoying—know I ma wrong and all bad, but still if had ever seen me as a friend...
"I was there at a club," a soft swallow. "Having fun." Another bite followed immediately, as if I could bury the conversation under something ordinary, something meaningless. I didn't look up—not making it that obvious, letting the quietness sit, let the tension thicken—exactly the way he expected. But I still wanted him to ask me….Ask me again…..ask me who was there…..
He didn't disappoint. "With whom?"
My eyes rose then—and caught that smirk.
It was faint. Almost nothing. But it was there, resting at the edge of his lips like a secret he wasn't ready to voice. For a moment, I couldn't read it. Mockery? Amusement? Or something worse—something that made my spine tighten ever so slightly. Does he know? The thought slipped in without permission, sharp and cold. It didn't belong—and yet it settled too easily.
I smiled anyway. Titled my head just enough to make it look soft, harmless. "Do you always need to know whom all I roam with?" My voice lowered, quieter now. "Or do you just not like the idea that I might not need anyone?" a subtle smirk across my lips.
His gaze didn't shift. Not even a flicker. The smirk deepen—just enough to be intentional. "Everyone needs someone."
A quiet laugh slipped out of me, light, almost breathless. "Do they?"
And then he leaned forward.
Not sudden. Not forceful. But enough. Enough to make the air feel heavier, closer, like something unseen had just closed around me.
"Don't move," he said. His voice dropped—low, edged, carrying something beneath it that didn't belong in a simple sentence. "Without my permission."
My breath paused. It wasn't fear. It was something on darker terms—something curled inward instead of recoiling.
"Even if you walk in front of the whole world...…" he continued, eyes locked onto mine, that same unreadable numbness lingering, "....be careful how you do it."
For a moment everything stilled. The noise around us dulled into nothing, the restaurant fading into distant blur. His words could never be for concern...a warning probably. I should be used to it by now, but somehow—they felt like a hand closing—slowly, deliberately—around something that didn't even realized it was being held.
And again, I smiled. Bright, soft, almost....enchanted.
"Don't worry," I spoke, my voice slipping faster now, lighter, like I was trying to catch up with my own thoughts. Still can't let my façade fade. I leaned towards him—a slight one, "Besides you...," a flirtatious smirk rose at my lips, "I don't really have anyone else anyways. Not now...not before...….probably not even thousand years." A quiet laugh followed, too quick, to full—knew it would annoy him, still something inside me always begged me to tease, "Only ever you did notice—"
I saw him grin in between, it was predictable of him. He stoop up just then—just like that.....
My words cut off mid-breath, hanging uselessly in the space between us. This is not the first time for us to be in such situation, still…..it's always the same feeling—one I couldn't express much. Probably I was the problem....definitely my words aren't placed correctly....more certainly—he hates me, I know he is disgusted by me.
I looked up to him, probably to have a last look of his in this precious day. He didn't bother to turn a slight towards me though, acting all as if my words had never reached him.
Typical.
But my gaze didn't stay on his face. It slipped lower—to his neck as he turns. His collar had shifted when he stood, fabric folding just slightly out of place, exposing a narrow strip of skin at the back. And there—I saw that.
A mark—it was dark and defined.
A sun-like shaped etched into his skin, and besides it—three small stars, aligned to the left with precision that may seem decorative at the glace, but probably weren't—something felt heavy behind it. As if I was aware about it, as if I was too close to something I hadn't realized yet.
I blinked slowly.
Can't we accept he had a tattoo…..?
The thought didn't settle fine. It hovered, unfinished, like a sentence missing it's end. By the time I lifted my gaze again, he was already turning away—far away, his figure fading in the crowd like some missed kite in mist—dissolving into something distant, unreachable.
"...…what a frustrating person," my murmur came unintentional as I watched him go, reaching to the same colleagues he was enjoying with.
Silence followed to my side. Then—"...a tattoo?"
A small smile crept onto my lips, uninvited. Almost...fond. "I didn't even know...." There was something about it—about him having something hidden, something I should have known but was strangely intimate. As if I had seen something I was a part of—if it was so then what is this weird feeling of whishing to stay away? And again instead of stepping back—I leaned into it.
I looked down at my plate, suddenly aware I had stopped eating. Finishing it quickly, I asked the waiter of an ice-cream. This night I also paid some tips.
...….
Outside the weather was chill—I liked it this way though. I had quite a few memories attached with the season but if I try to recollect them—the poor one seems more prevalent.
My steps slowed slightly, the quiet street stretching ahead, empty, indifferent. When I walked this way, something always sank deeper into my skin—few things I still couldn't manage to forget. Sometimes it's hard to leave behind those fragments which made you whole as a surviving forum.
To tell--------- I was born from something that shouldn't have existed. Every time I caught a reflection of mine in between such thoughts, I hated it. I hated the fact that I was a rape product.
An innocent mother. A man who mistook desire for entitlement. And from that—two children, me and him—my brother.
We weren't wanted. Not really. We were just….there. Consequences breathing in place of something that should have been forgotten.
And two—we were already too much. Left behind, over there—without ceremony, without hesitation, like something inconvenient that needed to be removed...….
Probably I shouldn't be knowing all this, but that orphanage warden hated me, I still couldn't figure the reason why. She would scream each time while giving those bread crumbs and utter about my guardians without being asked to mock me. That time I thought the reason may be my poor actions and mischievousness, but now when I see, I feel like—probably I wasn't the problem....sorry, to take up blames-- I still haven't learned.
The orphanage wasn't a place one usually remembers with warmth. Cold walls. Colder nights. And hunger—always there. And winters were the worst—clothes too think to matter, blankets that never held heat, food that came in portions small enough to make to grateful for nothing—somedays two meal, somedays one.
I remembered holding tight onto my brother's hand. Tightly. Like if I let it go, something would take him. Or maybe—take me instead.
-----------
I exhaled slowly, my breath ghosting in front of me as I walked. The cold brushing against my face again and again, familiar. Still, warmer than that place.
------------
Then comes the painter's house. A 'home'. That's what they called it. and for a while—I believed it. a place where things would settle. Where survival wouldn't feel like the only thing that mattered. Where maybe—just maybe—I could stop waiting for something to go wrong.
A faint smile touched my lips—it didn't last.
We were fed—like cattle. Educated—for law. Given structure. And used...…. Not in a way loud enough to protest. Not in a way anyone would bother questioning.
Chores that never ended. Responsibilities that didn't belong to children. I remember tutoring their child, I was that unpaid nanny who no one recognizes.
We filled the space. That's all----- a doctor had told them to have children, 'It will help.' ...…. So they got us, like some prescriptions. The house was clean, organized, controlled, but somehow—colder than the orphanage we had been to.
By middle school—we couldn't stay anymore. So we left with my broken arm and bleeding nose. No plan. No direction. Just the certainty that staying would break something that wouldn't fix again.
The streets welcomed us the only way they knew how. Without care or promise. Again we were back to that cold, empty street. We survived that was all. Not living. I worked as janitor and my brother worked at a café. Life was going on like some decent pupils, until—in the high school.
A road ran across the bust city land, on that rose a lot of car comes and disappears. One day my brother did too—he disappeared without a word.
Thay called it was an accident, but I saw him—perhaps late. He could have been saved—only if people had a heart, only if they had some short of humanity left...….
I was left alone on that winter road again, with only the memories I did like to have given up on.
Beside the sweet memories with Theo in middle school, I had nothing good to save...…. Unfortunately the one who gave me a bit of better memories wants me to become a memory too. Hah, it shouldn't matter. It shouldn't matter.
It shouldn't matter at all.
It shouldn't matter...…time had passed.
It shouldn't matter.