Imperfect Desires

All of us have survived at least one storm in life. But that storm still lives within us in one way or another. Some have the memory of a stormy night and some have the memory of a stormy heart, others had live through a storm of heart in a stormy night.

Unbeknownst to Xiu, there was another person being haunted by those streaks of lightning. Because he had also broken in a stormy night. With a cup of coffee in hand, Darren was sitting on the edge of his bed looking outside the glass windows with a blank look. 

The inky darkness seemingly was sinking in his bones. The silver hues in the sky looked like molten silver, swirling and radiating ripples. The explosion of thunder came in great waves of discordant and demented sounds. The sound was intensified with the howling wind but the person inside the room was lost in his own world.

*Flashback*

"Did you reach safely?" A worried voice could be heard on the phone. 

Darren leaned his head against the windowpane and looked outside at the subtly electric atmosphere. The grey clouds in the sky gave him a surreal feeling.

"Mama, are you angry that I left you alone in the hospital?" He asked, feeling guilty, ashamed and yet helpless.

"Absolutely not. Regi, you have spent enough time with me. As you said, now, she needs you to stand beside her." His face immediately lit up as he heard her words. 

"I know she needs me and I'm willing to stand by her through this hostile time as she did for me," he answered with a tender look on his face. 

"Are you still going to tell me that you don't love her?" He could feel the playfulness in her voice.

"Mama, I told you I only care about her. This is not love," he claimed in response to her teasing. 'At least, she doesn't think so.' He kept his thoughts to himself.

"Sir, we are here," his driver announced from the front seat and Darren looked out at the 'Sky Castle' Apartment building. 

"I'll call you later," he hung up the call and alighted down from the car with a smile on his face.

Standing under the apartment building, he cocked his head up and frowned slightly. Not because the rain had started falling but because the beautiful concrete and glass building was lit up except for that one apartment where his eyes were stuck. It wasn't that late at night, was she sleeping early? He wondered to himself.

His expressions shifted when he noticed something falling from that same balcony in that dark rainy night. Within minutes, he heard a crash as a body laid on top of a car not far from him. The sound of glass shattering, the sound of car alarms blaring and screams of people along with the lightning that jagged through the sky ripping the dark night like a paper... All seemed too distant to him.

The broken shards had cut his arm but he stood there motionless finding it hard to breathe. He couldn't decide whether he was supposed to breathe in or breathe out. Even breathing seemed like a tiring job. The crowd of people pushed him and jolted him awake. 

The rain was still falling mercilessly. He took one step at a time to move forward and felt like each step was akin to a rock that was weighing down on his heart. And then he saw something that shook the earth from under his feet along with the sky over his head.

Clad in a maroon silk gown, her slender body was lying listless and lifeless on the top of a car. Blood had painted her fair skin in scarlet color. His body trembled when his illusion broke and he realized his biggest fears had become reality. 

There was a smile on her lips even when she closed her eyes and that was all it took to break Darren into a crumbling mess. He held her cold hand and shook her, "Ah-Xiu! Ah-Xiu! Please, open your eyes."

But her lifeless body gave no response. Even when the paramedics took her to the ambulance, he didn't let go of her hand. He walked like his limbs didn't even belong to him. Everything hurt and if one asked what was everything, he might not be able to tell precisely. He just knew someone was squeezing his heart out.

The pain had always been invisible and subjective but that night, he felt the pain like no other. That night, he even saw pain with his own eyes in the form of her death. It was visible and yet couldn't capture that pain in his hands to hide her from it. His heart ache like it was torn apart and it magnified his woes. 

The ache had turned dull like lazy torture that was finding it amusing seeing him disintegrate slowly.

Even when in the hospital he was told that she's already dead, he didn't listen. He didn't want to listen. He couldn't listen! He kept stroking her face, cleaning the blood off of it with care. She hated blood, he knew that. So, he tried his best to wipe her face clean.

By the time, they covered her face with a white cloth, Darren's burning pain had intensified to a hot volcano. He had lost all his control over his emotions. The tears were flowing like water out of his eyes. He clasped her hand between both of his hands and leaning his head against it, he whispered, "Ah-Xiu, please wake up. I'm sorry for being late but please, don't punish me like this. How can you do this?" His voice was choked up and hoarse.

He tried opening her curled up hand and saw a crumpled piece of paper inside. It had blood stains on it now. It was her own handwritten note that read:

'I guess it was just wishful thinking on my part that I spent years waiting for a happy ending.

Now... I'm just too tired...'

Reading that note he looked at her face and fell down on his knees as he cried his heart out that had collapsed with her life. Now, his tears also stained that piece of paper as he asked, "Just how tired were you? Just how alone were you? And why didn't you call for me? Was our relationship that shallow?"

He had turned that piece of paper and found another string of words...

'Dear Life,

I've cried enough. Let's break up now.'

He cried so many shades of agony that night but she was gone. He didn't let her go but he lost her. All that she left behind that night was her absence. A void in his heart that finally made him realize...

"I love you, Ah-Xiu! I'm tired of lying to myself now. But I'm too late anyway."

*End of Flashback*