I remember that day when we parted. It was one of the many times we felt that we were parting for good, but it was one that I remember most clearly.
We spent the day walking around town. I'm sure we had various things we were supposed to go to, to attend to, but we made up reasons and excuses to delay them so we could spend one extra minute with each other. Save for the time I first told you that I was going to leave, I did not know how you were affected by the reality of it. I thought just like I had, you had quickly come to terms with it, and knew that no matter where we ended up, we'd be together in our hearts forever. We craved for each other's company because we enjoyed it, not because the clock was ticking away the hours left for us. Or so I thought.
We were saying goodbye for the night, and tears suddenly started streaming down your face. We stood in the middle of the crowd, coming and going, indifferent. You laughed and cried at the same time, not quite understanding where the tears came from, and I stood there, lost for words and unsure of what to do. Tears were never part of us, even when they might not had come from us. I don't remember how long we stood there, hugging, with you crying. I remember thinking how silly you were to cry, my own tears saved by my simple naivety of what the future held. I thought maybe I was stronger, but that was only because you knew what I didn't.
I really thought that nothing would break us. Not time, not distance, not sand nor wind. If there was one thing I could count on, it was the certainty of us. And maybe that was how I became complacent, or maybe it was our impatience for letters, or our contempt for the coldness of emails, but whatever it was, we lost touch.
I've never shed a single tear for us. Not us. I have felt the pang of pain in my heart from being apart from you, the kind that paralyses you and makes you want to rip your heart out so you won't feel any longer. But through all that, not a drop of tear. Maybe I had not learnt how to back then. Crying was not a part of my life. Or maybe just like how I am with everything, I watch the train run off the rails, watch it crash, and when everything is over, I torture myself over what I could have done.
I feel guilty sometimes for not having felt more. But truth is, if it were to happen all over again, I would probably do the same. Not that I don't feel, but that I feel too late.
And I ask myself why now, why when it's too late? If I think carefully about this, I'd know that there are still other trains running, other trains to be kept on track. Sometimes I feel that none of them will get to the end. But what I am desperately afraid of right now is losing what I have lost before, and this time around I feel like I'm watching a tape replay in slow motion, and feeling the same helplessness I felt that day I stood there with you.