I’m burning deep down from the inside and it ain’t your fault

“I have a secret that I’ve never told anyone.” His eyes are telling me not to think of anything else but him. “And I will only tell you this.” He sighed deeply, ready to announce his secret that I might have known. I want to shut my ears. I don’t want to hear it. 

“What is it?” As my throbbing heart beneath my chest growls louder, there’s this lump in my throat that suffocates me. What is it?

He moves closer to my ear. His warm and shaky breath brushes on my neck — it fears me. “I like Bas,” he whispers.

“Ai shia!”

Pulling off a ******ile on his satisfied face makes the thorns pierce through my lungs. I can feel it. I thought it was already gone. But his face lit up so well like it has never done before. I know that I am happy for him but my heart is against it. I know that I must not be hurting but my eyes suppress the tears that are about to fall. Now, all I have is a trying ******ile to distract him away from my unwanted pain I’m bearing.

“Really? For real?” I just don’t know what to say anymore. I just wanted to make him feel that I am happy for him too. But I am really happy for him. It is true! I want to see more of his delightful face right now. “Tell me! How?” I want to keep his beautiful moment inside my heart.

“Well — it was last semester, then all of a sudden, Bas said to me, ‘My way home goes past the pier. I can pick you up.’ I was like, ‘Oh shit, it’s convenient. Isn’t that nice, having someone to pick you up.’ And then, he really came. After that, we kinda had a moment in the car sometimes.”

His eyes are telling me not to think of anything else but this moment. But it painfully grows even more. Oh-aew’s euphoric love transcends into my insides and makes it miserable. I really thought it was already gone, after all those years that I did not see him. The longing ends and I guess, the agony begins. 

“I don’t want to lose him as a friend,” he said. My chest starts to contract. My head feels heavy. My heart beats fast. I am not feeling good. The cold winds in this hot afternoon shivers through my spine. Does he even know that I’m in pain? I feel something coming out from my nose. I wiped it with the back of my hand — it’s blood. So I looked at him, still pouting from his anxious thoughts. 

“I’ll help you.” This is the least that I can do. 

“How?”

“We’ll find a way.”

And now I’ll lose him. I am losing him anyway. 

“You’re good now, right?” He doesn’t seem to notice that my hands are full of blood now. Little branches moving its way out of my chest, piercing through my skin, through my blood-soaked shirt. My throat starts to itch and *cough* — red petals of hibiscus coming out from my mouth. Its yellow pollen scattered on the blood-splattered floor. 

“I’ve been alright from the start.”

“Been alright from the start? You were having a long face.”

If this is gonna be the end, may the flowers inside me unblooms for a while. Let me cherish these moments that are never mine. 

“Alright. I have someone that I like too.”

“Oh, really who? You never told me.”

His eyes are telling me not to think of anything else but his eyes. I see myself in his clear eyes — drowning in my own blood and petals, clutching my own hands on my neck, reaching for oxygen. I’m cold. And I’m burning deep down from the inside and it ain’t your fault. 

“I’ll tell you soon.”