Epilogue

Our final days together were fraught with equal amounts of anxiety and depression, tears and resentment. As much as I wanted to accept my loss with the grace and wisdom of an adult and not the screaming grief of a child, I couldn't fake it. Now, curiously, a friend was put in a similar situation, and I was prompted into looking at the epilogue of our story.

I remember being at the 1 Altitude bar. I was having drinks with Damian and Jaystine at the rooftop of the tallest building in Singapore, soaking and relishing in the last 3 days I have left before heading back to Madison. From up here, problems seem so far and tiny in the distance, nothing but insignificant specks of blinking lights. We talked about life, of love, of the inappropriate pictures of us on my phone and of how I should put a password lock on my phone if I had half a brain. Over tequila sunrises and Moscow mules, we shared our respective fears and dreams of the future. Unlike the kids we all once knew each other as, we are all now standing on the cusp of adulthood, all uncertain but hopeful.

I remember receiving a text message from you, as we were just on the topic of you. Perhaps talking about how you once got to skip work on the account of your uncle's death but first came over to do the naughty with me while keeping me in the dark about it. Or perhaps about our first date where you fed me chocolates by the river. In your text message, you asked me where I was, and said that you had just finished watching a play of some sort. I told you about our little night out on 1 Altitude, and for the moment put you out of my mind as I leaned out over the glass barriers and stuck my head into the wind, letting it take my breath away. 

I remember we were just getting ready to leave, walking towards the elevators that would bring us back down to the first floor. The elevator doors chimed open, and thunder struck through my body as I recognized you on the other side. There you were, just half-smirking in that devilish manner I had first fallen in love with, as if this dramatic entrance was what you had been planning all along. These movie-magic moments, scenes where, if I had seen in a movie I'd have found completely unrealistic, were happening in my own life. Were these the reasons why we go through everything we do, just to experience for once in a lifetime, such exquisite bliss? 

I remember the four of us sitting by the pier of the Singapore river, the waters lapping at our ankles as distant music drifted by from bars across the river, providing the backdrop of what I would soon come to know as our last real conversation. A cover band in one of the bars across us was playing Jason Mraz's I'm Yours, I could hear, appropriate considering I had done a version of that for you around the beginning of our relationship. The four of us talked and laughed a lot and I was surprising myself that I could find humor at this juncture. At least it's ending on a good note, I told myself. My leaving was pushed to the back of my mind for now, but it was resiliently edging forwards.

I remember you walking me home and taking the lift up with me as usual. Before exiting, I turned back and sneaked in one final kiss. 

That was the last time I ever saw you. 

On the last day before I left, I was in Damian's room where I received a text message from you, saying that you're not going to see me again, citing how it was going to make things too difficult. I was alone while Damian was getting drinks or making a call. I stared at my phone for a beat, jaw hanging open, then cried when I realized I wouldn't see you again. I cried at your cruelty, at the abrupt loss of the one thing I held most dear to my heart for months. Then I gathered myself up before Damian came back, for I wanted to let him see me leave with my head held high. There was time enough for tears after I had passed through Changi's departure gate.

After living in a daze for two months back in Madison, I realized that something very fundamental in me changed. Or was broken. I was weak now, or at least the kind of person the old me would consider weak. Neurologists would chalk it up to symptoms related to dopamine withdrawal, romantics would call it heartbreak. Regardless, I knew I would never be the same person again. Part of that scares me. Areas in which I once was ruthless towards, I now had more compassion. In situations that demanded my trust though, I grew skeptical and cautious. I believed in the strength and power of love now, yes. But I also saw the darkness of betrayal. I would always consider, perhaps unfairly, that your one-sided decision to not see me one last time an act of betrayal, but that is simply the way I have been forced to regard the events. 

It took seven months for me to be able to write about this. To this day, even after all this time, not one day passes where I don't think about you. In a very pathetic sense, whenever I picture what my future would be like, I would still unconsciously cast you as the star, there by my side. Does dopamine reliance really last this long? Do the scientists have answers for this? 

When my friend, in this oddly similar situation, asks me if it was worth it, I'd say, "yes, if he makes it worth it." You made it worth it because you were worth it. 

I only hope I was worth it.