I called the one I was supposed to surprise with the apartment “my star” but I realized that you are the original star, the one whose light has never gone out. Yes, you have always been there…you stayed at the side lines after we had parted ways while I found a new star whose light later dimmed.
*****
At the very center of my bed right now is a red box with a diamond ring. “Wear it to our dinner on Saturday and I will follow you to London,” you said when you brought the ring to my apartment a week after you had learned about my plans to leave the country. You must have sensed my confusion because you added, “It’s not an engagement ring.” So what is it exactly? Just some sign you need from me for you to leave everything behind and be with me in London? Yes, you said.
It is Friday. Tomorrow, we go out to have dinner. I have been trying to ignore that red box. I have been delaying having to make a decision—do I want you back in my life? Do I want you with me in London? I still have so many things to do—turnover at work, send-off parties to attend, bills to settle, and independent films to see. I still have to pack so many things. I still have to sort which of my stuff to take with me to London and which to store at my parents’ house. I have been trying to ignore that red box. I have been trying to push the thoughts of you away from my mind. But as I pack my bags, as I gather all the things I have brought into this apartment for sorting, I realize that you are in almost all of them, that almost every nook and cranny of this apartment has some memory of you in it.
You were not the reason I got this apartment. You knew it was supposed to be for someone. After we had parted ways, I met someone and the apartment was supposed to be a surprise for him. But things happened and plans changed. Still, I kept the house. It was here that I healed myself and picked myself up. Or better, it was here where you picked me up from the mess that I had become and helped me be whole again.
The apartment was as plain as it could be with its dark wood and off-white motif. Plain and lifeless as was my life after I had parted ways with the person I was supposed to surprise with the apartment. Then, you started putting color into it as you started putting color back into my life…as a friend, as you put it.
You had gifted me with a 32-inch flat screen TV with cable subscription so I could have something to entertain me…though you had known I didn’t watch TV a lot. I still don’t. You had said you couldn’t imagine me staring out into space and crying my eyes out every time I would be home alone. Later, you admitted that you had gotten the TV because you had nothing else to do while waiting for me to get home from work. And I didn’t want you to pick me up from work, anyway. I had given you the key to my house because you would always come over anyway and I hated the thought that you would always have to wait somewhere else while I was at work. A week after I had given you the key, I woke up to the smell of ham and cheese omelet coming from my kitchen. Yes, you just prepared a “real” breakfast for me—with bread, juice, coffee, and fruits—and not just some microwaved food from the convenience store across the street.
I am now staring at a rack of McCormick spices. I still don’t know which to use for soups, steaks, and fish but with your sophisticated taste in food, you were always able to identify what was in your food even with your eyes closed. With you, I always had restaurant-grade meals at home. I sometimes complained at my lack of culinary skills “but you could bake,” you said. And I shot back, “but I couldn’t be eating brownies all the time!” And you laughed. My kitchen is the way it is now because of you. I was content with a microwave and a convection oven for baking but you added the stove and the pots and the pans. You would use those to cook for me, you said.
When I got home one weekend, I was surprised by the Malang painting in my receiving room, and on to my bathroom was a blue shower curtain and yellow towels. You knew my colors. I thought that your being an architect benefited me. Yes, I had this little thought that you might be gay but I knew otherwise.
I called the one I was supposed to surprise with the apartment “my star” but I realized that you are the original star, the one whose light has never gone out. Yes, you have always been there…you stayed at the side lines after we had parted ways while I found a new star whose light later dimmed.
I am sitting here on the sofa bed that I bought for you. At my lowest point after my star’s light had dimmed, you decided that you would sleep over as often as you could…just to keep me company. You saw me crying myself to sleep. You saw me waking up at 3 a.m. crying. You saw me walking around my apartment mumbling questions I would have asked the star whose light had dimmed. From here on the sofa bed I am sitting on right now, you saw me make a fool of myself. From this sofa bed, you reached out your hand to me and you helped me slowly make myself whole again.
I had this fear that there might be something in the sleepovers, in the meals together, in your cooking for me. And I wasn’t ready for whatever it was. Not so soon. It wasn’t fair for you. I was still healing. Yes, I was whole but the scars had yet to heal. The seams had yet to disappear. So, I asked for my key back.
I am walking back to my bedroom to get the red box with a diamond ring in it. I have a decision to make.
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