Hygge

2013

We had always occupied a communal universe, you and I, but I was too resentful of our differences to see our similarities – you with your long-sleeves, me with my knee-length socks. Our classmates clamored to take off their blazers due to the raging heat; we always kept ours on. They wanted to show skin; we were comfortable being shrouded.

My bitterness towards you was laced with envy, for I couldn’t comprehend how someone could be so carefree, happy. I’d think, oh, he has no care in the world; yet I craved that feeling of placidity. I wished I could smile as wide, be as blissful, live life as nonchalantly.

I didn’t know.

How little I did know.

Sometime after a soccer match between both SS2 classes, I froze when I saw you barechested by the tap, scooping water onto your body, onto the scars that peppered your skin.

I knew those scars.

I had those scars.

When you noticed me staring, your defenses went up. But mine came crumbling down, foundations of acrimony shaken out of place by the blossoming roots of trauma-bonding. You didn’t get to see the scars on my body – that was to come later – but you noticed the shift in my expression, you felt the air change.

When we bumped into each other the next day, you flashed me a smile. It was the first time you smiled that smile, the one reserved just for me.

2014

When our Principal pulled me aside to say that my parents were killed in a car crash and I burst into tears, only you knew the meaning of those tears. I was hit with immediate post, sure, but I wasn’t only mourning my parents. My tears, yours too, were heavy with another type of grief – grief for the lives we lived heavily revolving around alcohol; grief for the lives we would’ve lived without it.

2017

Everyone in your family had alcohol and derangement running through their veins. The day you took me to your parents, your father proclaimed with vile words that your fiancé was an ugly bitch, you a weakling, and you’d always be the bastard child from a tout your mum opened her nasty legs for.

You allowed me to drive you home, you who had always joked that I lacked spatial awareness, you who never let me touch your car keys. You screamed so loudly into your pillow that the ground shook, and in that rare, guttural moment, you sank to your knees and wept. I crouched down and guided your face to my shoulder. As your tears soaked my shirt and my fingers raked the coils of your hair ever so gently, I felt you relax against me. I whispered, “It’ll be okay,” and as much as I didn’t believe it, I hoped that I could give you a bit of the comfort you’d given me.

The next day, when I pinched your cheek, falling in love with you was as easy as the smile you gave me, but I was yet to know how quickly love could turn sour.

2019

I knew you’d end our relationship the night of my sixth breakdown when I overheard you saying over the phone, “I can’t do this anymore,” but it took you three months to actually breakup with me, during which you helped me settle down at an apartment three hours away from yours.

Oh, people talked. They asked questions. And although we owed nobody an explanation, we couldn’t give a good reason because we couldn’t explain it ourselves. So we told them that the distance was to avoid temptation because we were saving ourselves for marriage, and with our young ages and budding careers, we were too young to marry. We were lying to ourselves, pretending that it was normal for a healthy couple to willingly go long-distance when I could’ve accepted a job offer closer to you. That’s how we dealt with most of our problems, by gaslighting
ourselves, postponing the inevitable. We thought if we ignored our issues long enough, they would resolve themselves.

2020

Toju would say, “He put himself first.” She always said that. Always.

My friend and unofficial therapist, Toju, helped me understand just how much I drained you. I was too consumed by my struggles to see that you were struggling, too. You were the primary caretaker of me and my mental health issues, you who also had mental health issues.

“I don’t blame him for ending things,” Toju would say. “Everyone knows how much Fome loved you, yet he broke up so he could stay sane. He would die for you, yet he broke up because he put himself first. Put yourself first, too.”

You were the primary reason I stayed alive, so I had to find other reasons, to learn to love the person I was without you in the equation. I’d been living for you; I needed to live for myself.

“Can’t both coexist?” I asked Toju.

“Yeah,” she said. “But love yourself first.”

Relationships thrive on magnanimity and self-sacrifice. Yet in the time we spent apart, I learned that perhaps a bit of selfishness is needed for individual growth.

2023

When I get home late and snuggle beside you, you pretend that you’re asleep. We both did that as kids when our parents engaged in a screaming match, yet it scares me how dead-still you can lay while awake. I watch the rise and fall of your chest, place my fingers on your radial artery, check for expired air.

Trauma is a recurring theme in our lives, but when it’s you and me in our bed, we forget the pain and bask in the tranquility of the other’s presence.

It’s when you’re ‘asleep’ that I tell you what I love about you.

I love the little kisses you leave on my neck, the deep hugs we share. How you unabashedly declare your love, as it spurs me to live as boldly.

I love the motivational post-its you leave on the fridge. Yesterday you wrote, Just five minutes more…, and it made me wistful of the time that phrase was my lifeline, when you’d send it to me during my most depressive episodes.

“But what happens after the five minutes?”

“Wait for another five minutes. Just keep waiting.”

Life is beautiful, really, and so is time – we got to heal, move on and live content lives that our past selves would’ve never imagined we’d live.

I love your smile, your laughter, your positivity that seeps into me like a color gradient, rich hues into a dull canvas. I love the way you look at me, the dilation of your pupils. I love the way you love me – it makes me love myself. I love when you pull me closer and nestle your head in the crook of my neck – it makes me believe that I gave you a reason to live, too.