Their Days of Nights

56 : Promise

Benjamin

Just a few hours into the early morning of the first day of last year, after we left my uncle's condo, I took Kim back to her place. I stayed with her for about two hours until she fell asleep.

But I did something stupid before that.

We were in the middle of her bed. Halfway through making out, and just as her hands were about to reach the buttons of my jeans, I said, "I want to spend the rest of my life with you."

Exactly two seconds later, she inched away and stared at me.

She narrowed her eyes. "Was... Were you?" she asked with a half-smirk.

"Uhm..."

And in those next three seconds, I had this flash debate in my head whether I should say yes or not.

Of course, I wanted to. And, of course, I meant every word and everything else in between.

I've always wanted to, ever since I was old enough to understand things. I may have been seventeen then, but I knew it's true, still is.

But that wasn't a proposal. It was more like a slip of the tongue, or the wrong words blurted out in a moment of honest longing.

Then, as always, the idiot in me tried to salvage the awkwardness of that moment, but it backfired.

"No. I mean, yes...but no."

Kim frowned at me. She sighed, laid down on her bed, and stared at the ceiling.

"What I really mean to say is..." I paused and waited for her to look at me. "I'm not saying it right now."

"Okay, good." She sighed, held the old stuffed koala by its ears, and placed it below her chest. "Right now isn't exactly the right time."

If it weren't for my stupid mouth, I would have been luckier than that koala by then.

"Uhm, just out of curiosity, when is the right time exactly?" I asked.

"When we're ready, I guess. Practically. Emotionally. Everything-ly. I don't know when that is, but I'm sure it isn't right now."

"How about this? We'll only say it when we're a hundred percent sure it's the right time? Meaning, when we're both ready."

She rolled to her side and moved closer to me. "Okay. With that aside, can we go back to what we're doing a while ago?"

***

It's still unusually cold for a February night. I hope Kim wears—or at least brings—a jacket on her way here.

Another court is occupied. I can hear a ball against rackets and shoes against the court.

I reach down for my stuff and dribble the tennis ball with the racket while I wait. She should be here in ten minutes.

There are a hundred different places where I could have planned this thing, but this seemed like the most practical idea. This court has been my go-to place for years now, and it's a private spot. So, either way, this is ideal. If things don't go in my favor, I can stay here and smash those round neon stuff against the walls, and nobody else would see. Besides, she hates when people do that kind of thing in a fancy and staged way; she finds that pretentious.

"It should be natural, but not spontaneous," she once said.

Frankly, it doesn't matter to me. What I find more important is how I deliver the words that I semi-rehearsed in my head for two days in a row. As long as I get the logic out of them, and she gets it, then I'm good.