Tucked Away in my Heart 1

What follows here is a series of short stories that I’m attempting to write – all around a central theme. A pretty girl who’s just turning 30 and who’s loved someone – Nonu -who truly loved her yet is not with him because of their strong belief in their shared values. The series is conversations she has aloud with him and of her memories with him. Of course, he’s not there.

Nonu. The one I’ve loved with all my heart and soul. Nonu. The one who made me feel like a princess. Nonu. My prince. Nonu. Now married to someone else.

There are days when I wish I was with you and not without. There are days when I just close my eyes and thank God or whoever is up there for whatever moments I got with you. I thank profusely for the moments you made me feel like the most loved, most wanted – and I mean in a good way here – woman in the world. I’m sure every woman in the world feels this; I feel it more acutely so. Those moments are what give me the strength to carry on in dark moments of loneliness. There are moments like this one, when I talk to you and I just know that somewhere you’ll hear my words.

And now I’m beginning to sound like a sad, drippy romance novel. What I really want to do is to tell you about my trip to Thailand.

Yes, I finally went to Thailand. Two years too late, but I went nevertheless. And everywhere I went it reminded me of you. Oh Nonu, I so wanted to see you there. When I went to the floating market, all I could see was your handsome smiling face, you pointing at the camera, then you sitting at that cheap formica table with Ming and the rest of your colleagues. I saw Pantip Plaza and I went to PatPong street just to walk down the same road that you walked down on. I went into one of those massage parlors and got a massage, thinking all the while that at least one of us had the experience...:)

So futile, just writing this away. You'll never get to read it. I miss you calling me "child". There's another and he calls me that when he knows he's pushed me too far and wants to mollify me, but it's just not the same :(. I miss your laughter. I miss you crooning till I drift off to snoozeland and then quietly disconnecting the phone. I miss the urgency in your messages. I miss those blushes whenever I would suddenly think of all we'd talked through the night about. I don't want you, but I miss you. There are times when I think of how easily we fell in step with each other. Of how we could talk for hours on an end and of how we could mail each other after a day or two and it would just be a continuation of our last mail exchange.

I don't love you in that wild, urgent way any more, but there's still that fond remembrance of how you made me feel like a child and woman at the same time. Most days you’re just that faint ache in my heart which I miss in the loud thumping caused by some excitement or the other.

Damn...saying all this has made me realize I really do miss you. Do you miss me too? Have to go now. Will be back to talk to you some more…