“I was in a daze all the way home. I had spent an entire hour earlier that day standing in front of the mirror, making sure I looked perfect. I thought maybe, just maybe you will ask me to be your girlfriend that day.”
She looks straight into his eyes.
“But you never did. Instead you delivered a bombshell.”
She shifts her eyes to gaze at her glass of orange juice momentarily, before continue to look into his eyes.
“I can’t comprehend why you never did that. I really thought you liked me, but after that I’m not sure. You treated me like a princess, entertained each and every of my whim and fancies, but there is this piece of ground between us that you never thread across.”
“That’s why I went to the airport. I needed an answer.”
***
He was surprised to see her at the airport.
He had just paid the fare to the taxi driver and was halfway transferring his suitcase onto a trolley when he saw her. She was standing in front of the revolving door into the airport, observing him silently.
He thought he had said the final goodbye with her, and this meeting somehow unbalanced him a little bit. He was totally unprepared.
They just stood there, looking at each other without a word.
“Hi. You came.” he said, at last.
“Yes. I don’t think it was a proper goodbye last time.”
They lined in the check-in queue together. She was quiet, and her expression had a lost puppy look. She seemed to be waiting for him to do something.
He tried lifting the somber mood with light questions about her daily life. She only nodded or shook her head in reply.
‘”You really don’t want to come back?” she asked finally, after he had checked in his luggage. They were standing a few metres in front of the International check-in door.
“Well, I don’t think I can.”
“When can I see you again?”
“Maybe sometime in the future if fate has it,” he said.
She rummaged through her bag and produced an envelope, which she gave to him.
“You can only open it in the plane.”
“Okay. I have to go.”
She took a step towards him. He knew the sign and yearned to embrace her. But he feigned indifference and turned to go.
He walked swiftly through the door.
“Take care,” he heard her cried out.
He didn’t look back.
He was 23,000 feet above the ground when he peeled the envelope open. He caught a whiff of pink rose, and images of her swirled in his mind. He retrieved the single piece of paper inside the envelope.
He stared at the paper long and hard.
It was blank. There was no writing on it.
What was she trying to say?
He turned the paper around.
In her neat handwriting was printed the note “I love you”.
“I love you too”, he whispered, trying desperately to hold back his tears.
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