“If the glint in my eye traced the depths of your sigh down that passage in time, back to the moment I crashed into you like so many wrecks do—too impaired by my youth.”

https://open.spotify.com/track/1rmEsOezwf2lmIZTMAO5Ag?si=7c78d620e4fa419d

cw: infidelity.

One somber morning at the end of January, inside an apartment in Dharmawangsa.

The bedsheet Alexandra was sleeping on boasted a 400-thread count. Weaved from Egyptian cotton, it claimed to be the softest cotton to ever graze your skin, to envelope you in warmth, to give you the most peaceful dream—and whatever pretty lingos they put on the label for the sake of marketing.

The fool in her wanted to believe those beautiful words, but reality acted like parents with tough love. She knew exactly how much it cost, for Nicholas trusted her judgment when it came to purchases, after all. Which was ironic, because out of all her recommendations, she was the one he didn’t choose.

Alexa thought this bed would be warm because he was in it, but she couldn’t be more wrong. It was cold as ice even when he was still in it, scrolling through his phone; his bare back was displayed in glory in front of Alexa, and she was tracing the constellation of moles on it.

There was a saying that moles were kiss marks left by his lover in the previous lifetime, and if the saying was true, he would be covered in moles in his next lifetime—if Alexa were to be considered a lover.

“How’s work, Ash?”

Nicholas shrugged nonchalantly as he continued to scroll on his phone. “Same old, same old… Brand deals, cover shoot, et cetera. Besok aku ke Bali, ada photoshoot.”

Our conversation used to consist of eight chapters of introduction, fourteen chapters of flashbacks, and fifty pages of epilogue. Now it’s shorter than my favorite song—and to my recollection, I was always the starter, never the finisher. Always the one to ask, never one to answer.

Nicholas did ask one thing. “Want to come over?” mostly when he was bored, and Alexa tried to convince herself that she was the same—if bored meant she left her friends behind just to be his entertainment of the day. If bored meant she had to refused a job because he needed her. Maybe that was why she hardly had any friends, now. Alexandra left them all behind, but she could never leave this one.

She also someone who used to wear her heart on her sleeve, but now that it got broken, she hid them most of the time.

Like now—she tried to hide her real feelings, and directed her attention to the room she was in instead.

This apartment of his still had her traces all over it. The monstera she bought for him was thriving despite his lack of care, and she always remembered to water it every time she happened to be around. Her mug was sitting on his kitchen counter, and she wondered if it knew it had changed owner, that the lipstick stain left on its ridge was in different shade of pink now. Alexa also wondered if he remembered it all, but she was not one to ask such question.

Instead, she would pretend. She would pretend that all these thoughts never bothered her at all.

Decided that her time was up, Alexa kissed Nicholas’ shoulder before she wrapped duvet around her body and went to the bathroom to wash all the marks he left last night. Funny how those kisses felt so close to love when it was dark, but when the lights got into the room, they started to feel like sin instead. And yet, Alexa would try to convince herself that it was still love. When Nicholas planted kisses all over her body, she almost believed he loved her. When he emptied himself in her, she almost said to herself that he was giving himself to her. That he belonged to her.

Alexa watched as the suds ran through her pale skin, a fleeting witness to the remainder of kisses and the could-have-been. She thought the soap didn’t do a good job at cleansing because everything was still vividly felt: the texture of his lips, the whispers of her name when he mapped her body like a city he dreamed to live in, the way he touched her like she was something sacred, something worth worshipped.

But in the morning he moved town, in the morning he changed religion.