Just a dream

*****
Watching her gazing blankly at the countertop, occasionally glancing up with those oversized eyes into mine.

"And sometimes, you know, it feels like it never happened... all that time together..."

"I know." I know. I know...

"... I just knew that there was no way forwards except marriage..."

Deja vu.

"I knew that I couldn't do it for the rest of my life... the arguments which ended in his not calling me for days... until sometimes I'd cry. Towards the end I found myself pressing the auto-redial button on my phone, and going about the daily chores... checking on the phone now and again to see if it got through... just to make the effort, you know?"

"I know."

"And then the final time, he realised after a while that I wasn't calling back, and then he called me and was angry with me at first, and said I hurt him, and I thought all those times you made me cry... what, was it just to teach me a lesson?"

She looks up with those beautiful, liquid, sad eyes of hers.

"You're right, you couldn't have done that... it's the rest of every day of your life."

"But I miss him, you know?"

"How will you feel if he moves on?"

"Wah I tell you man, I'll cry...... I don't want to wake up one day, and you know, listening to you... Don't want to be like her, I don't want it to be too late, you know?"

"It won't be; it's totally different... I think you deserve someone who's better for you, someone who won't control your whereabouts, who won't expect you to stay home all the time doing housework, someone who'll give you space and make you happy."

"I want to be... me."