Wintsarye

My relationship with Keson has gone through ups and downs after we got married, but it seemed to get better over time. My perception of this reality being actually reality got more and more solid and I started to believe that maybe reality doesn’t have to be bad after all. I was pregnant with his child, grateful and happier than ever, with him always by my side, knowing that he would never leave me. But somehow, my doubt for his love came back, as I saw him promoted as the store manager and there was a new girl working in his store. She was young and pretty, and even though I knew he would never cheat on me, I felt like she wanted something from him and wanted to get it no matter how. I knew that feeling was totally unjustified, but I could not stop feeling that way. I went to see him every now and then, as my work started to get easier and I didn’t have to work that many long hours due to my pregnancy. When I went down to the store to...

I didn’t want to reconcile with Keson until we met the marriage counsellor. However, we had to sleep on the same bed and that night Keson hugged me from behind despite my struggle. I didn’t want to struggle too hard because I do love him deeply in my heart. However, hitting me was completely out of line, plus his failure to understand my feelings struck me painfully in my heart. “I am sorry Royane,” He said. I could feel his tears wetting the back of my neck. “I really didn’t mean it. I love you. I am so sorry.” He gently stroked my swollen face with his hand. I moved away a bit, but I didn’t say anything. In fact, I had nothing to say. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We met the marriage counsellor few days later. It was an afternoon and we both got off work to meet her. “I am Ms. Keya, your marriage counsellor,” She said, smiling, “Is this the first time you both did marriage counsellin...

Our married life was no different than the time we date except for the fact that we started living together. One time we were eating dinner at home after I cooked something, I talked about domestic violence with him. “My dad once hit my mum with some book he had in his hand. My mum didn’t talk to him for nearly a month afterwards,” I said. “Well, my dad once hit my mum with a ruler because she said something bad. But then my mum took it all in and returned the favour after a while. It was so bad,” He said. I didn’t know how to react to that. Did that imply maybe he will do the same? Why did he always try to compete with our different stories and somehow wanted to one-up for every single thing? How insecure did he feel to have to do that to validate his own experiences? I started to think of our previous interactions, and realised this one thing that really pissed me off. Now that we were married and I had to face him all the time, I realised this should have been a deal bre...

“Are you sure you are happy, darling?” My mum asked me, as she walked in my apartment with her husband. “Yes, I am.” I could not be happier. It was my wedding day, a day I had never dreamt of, because I never believed in happy endings. Was I being sarcastic? Sarcasm has never been on brand for me. I had always been realistic, been believing and completely honest. And I was happy. I was marrying a man I wanted and felt a lot for. For the past year or so of dating Keson, my feelings for him never reduced. In fact, it had grown stronger and stronger. It was just him whom I doubted. I doubted that he really did love me back the same. But maybe it was just in my head. I had always been the one who doubted love, and all my past boyfriends have been saying that I submitted too much to reality that they never seemed to be able to feel me, or my love. Maybe I never loved them, but this time it was true, it was real, and I could not ignore my feelings for him...

Landing on a job was really difficult, but I finally got a job as a secretary in an office. They sold sport supplies. I had no idea why they needed a secretary, but they did. I had an interview and they gave me the job, saying that my Sociology degree would really help me in communicating with customers. “We are a professional team, selling professional sport supplies for national teams,” The manager said to me on the first day of work, “We need to be really organized, as we have to organise the list of customers who need our professional supplies. Your job is to assist me on that.” I nodded and nodded and nodded. I had to obey and just do as I was told, and I had absolutely no problem with that. I knew the job description and I just went with it, because I had to. It didn’t really matter if it was a chore or not, I just knew I had to work to live, and to eat. Welcome to the real world. My opinion on the sad, sad reality never changed, but when I started to date Keson, everything...

Out of either curiosity, or mere hopefulness, I went back to the convenience store after two weeks or so. I took a long time because I had to really, really think it through. I saw him there and I started to panic. He was checking out some customer’s goods, smiling at them and telling them to have a nice day. He really did that to everyone, didn’t he? He then turned and saw me. I had no choice but to step inside the store. “Hey,” He said “Hey,” I said. I hoped it just ended here. “I was being serious. I do care about you and I do like you. Maybe you can’t really see that because we only met a few times, but I felt like we really could take a step forward.” He must know what I was thinking, or why I came after two weeks. I hoped he shut up or never speak, but he did and I was forced to reply. “Okay,” I said, not feeling or acknowledging it. That was all I could utter out of my mou...

I was never really an impulsive person, but somehow Keson changed this quality in me. Was it good? Or was it bad? I don’t really know. I just know I was then standing outside the convenience store, broken deep inside, possibly desperate for love. Keson was a kind and caring person, but did that mean he will like me in return? It didn’t seem possible. I was just a customer who visited the store he worked in, and he probably just had to be nice. Maybe I wanted to turn his image in my mind into reality too badly. I don’t even know. At that very moment, I felt like if I didn’t confess, I will regret my whole life (more realistically, it will just be for a while but it will still have a big impact on me). I stepped into the store and Keson was not on duty. I went towards the back of the store and didn’t see him walking around there either. My courage was fading, but then I saw him walk out of the storage room. I could not support myself. I was slipping away, but I still mana...

I met Keson on a breezy Thursday morning. There was a lecture that morning but I didn’t go because it was recorded and attendance was not compulsory. Plus I just rushed through my essay the night before. I had all kinds of excuses for my behaviour, but the truth is, I felt like watching a movie, so I wandered to a movie theatre nearby and bought a ticket to a movie that was on that morning. I had no idea what the movie was about before going in. Turns out it was a sad movie, about a death in the family that brought the rest of the family together. I could never stand the thought of someone’s death, even though I knew it is the reality, and everyone will die at some point. It is just too sorrowful to think about. The fact that someone in your life, someone you could touch and talk to, someone you care about, could suddenly just be gone. The lighting of the movie theatre was dim and I left sobbing. These all combined to make me feel dizzy when I stepped out into ...

I did not know what got into me. It just did. Heart breaks, heart aches… you name it, I have been through it. But somehow, something just got into me, and made me chase disappointments, one after another. I never understood what mum meant by ‘having someone you will love for a lifetime’, or what my stepdad meant by ‘having someone by your side for a lifetime’, or what my dad meant by ‘having someone who will cherish you for a lifetime’. A ‘lifetime’. It sounds so easy. Like it can be measured and recorded on a scale. A highway that has a visible start and end. And that ‘someone’ sounds so accessible. Like a piece of scrap paper you can obtain effortlessly somewhere on your messy work desk. Like how your right hand can nimbly grab your left arm. Love, or whatever the connection is called between two intimate human beings, never seems to last though, despite what they all said. Not with mum and dad, not with mum and her former lover, not with my stepdad and his ex-wife. When I was yo...