DATE STARTED: MAY 30, 2017
DATE FINISHED: JUNE 1, 2017 (12:37 AM)
DATE EDITED: JULY 20, 2017
WORD COUNT: 1415

TO KAYDEN. I love you more each day. 

--

It’s almost empty.

The glass bottle stood on my desk, separated from its kind on the shelf. The orange tinge of its liquid contents barely visible.

It’s almost empty.

Only one drop left before I am left with nothing.

My fingers reached for the bottle, its rectangular shape, awkward in my hands. The ghost of his fingers interlaced with mine in my mind. A small smile crept on my face.

I took off the cap. The strong smell of masculinity, soft kisses invaded my nose. I felt safe.

“I love you.” He whispered, his lips on my hair.

In his arms I felt safe. I could almost fall asleep.

We were in the back of the theater, the armrest between us raised so I could snuggle into his arms. We both had hoodies on, making the hug softer. The movie we were watching was not boring in any way but my eyelids kept fluttering, unsure if I was in need of rest.

I moved my head so it would lie on his chest. It was my spot, my comfy area. The move allowed me to keep my eyes on the movie rather than his cheeks that I wanted to pinch at that moment. It also gave me an opening to his shirt, where his strong perfume was.

“I love you too.” I responded, resting my fingers on his chin, feeling his slight stubble.                                    

His hold on me got tighter and I felt like we were one in that moment. Adam and Aria. Ada.

Ada.

Replacing the cap, I put the bottle back on my desk and walked away from it.

It was his perfume bottle. The perfume bottle.

My eyes moved to my laptop, where an unfinished study set on Quizlet waited for me. My handouts of political theories right beside the keyboard. Work that needed to be finished.

I frowned.

There was nothing else I could do for the afternoon except finish my set and then study it for class next week.

With no one to text, no one to hang out with, I was by myself, like most of my days now.

Adam was at work, as usual. He was an adult and I would never be able to compete with his job because, for now, my education should be my top priority as is work to him. We both had a lot of growing up to do.

For the next two hours, I focused on my study set. My phone was on my bed stand, a couple of feet away with its Wi-Fi capabilities turned off to block any social media frenzy that I might want to partake in. Music played through my speakers, a playlist on Spotify that always helped me concentrate. For the Broken Hearted. Fortunately, I only needed its bittersweet songs to concentrate since I had a great relationship with my boyfriend. Most days.

Valentine’s day was a pretty shitty day for me this year. It was the first time I had a boyfriend on Valentine’s day and he was MIA. Well, not really.

Adam was assigned to temporarily manage accounts at another firm in another city, so most days, I only got to talk to him in the evening. The time of day when we were both tired, irritable and not in the mood.

On that day, paper hearts, proposals, flowers and kisses happened around me as I ate my French fries by myself. I had a fantasy that he would show up out of nowhere and sweep me off my feet. I would hug him for the longest time and let go only to reach up and kiss him. But that didn’t happen. What happened was, I skipped school to be at a McDonald’s that we used to always go to.

The next day, I went to school early and was surprised to find a car outside my classroom and a lady asking my classmate where I was.

When the lady saw me, she smiled and told me to wait.

My eyes went wide and I immediately regretted not putting makeup on that morning. The lady pulled out a huge bouquet. When she got closer to me, I saw that it wasn’t flowers in the bouquet, per se, it was cupcakes designed to look like flowers. I was so touched. It was so heavy and so pretty that when she handed to me, I stumbled a little bit. Even before she read the card, I knew who it was from. Adam.

The night before, we had a fight. Because he wasn’t with me on Valentine’s day, I decided that it wasn’t going to be called Valentine’s day. To me, it was officially, just another Tuesday. He was mad because I made him feel like he wasn’t doing his part as a boyfriend and I was mad because he couldn’t take a joke. But then, the cupcakes happened.

When the lady left, I carried the bouquet inside the classroom and placed it at the back of the room. I gave Adam a call and cried to him, saying I was surprised he had planned something like this but told me weeks earlier to expect nothing. It was one of the most humbling moments in my life.

Never had there ever been a guy that went through the lengths he did just to give me a bouquet of cupcakes. Then and there, I decided that February 15^th would now be officially better than February 14^th.

That day, I wished I could hug him, hug him tight because he deserved to know how much I loved and appreciated him and everything he did. Also, hugging him meant I got to get a whiff of his amazing perfume.

Adam has since come back from his temporary assignment and has finally been given the status of regular employee at his workplace. The two-month separation made our relationship a lot stronger.

I finally finished my sets at around five in the afternoon.

My fingers were tired from all of the typing and writing they had been doing and my brain practically screamed at me to relax myself.

I set aside my things and moved from my place on the desk to go to the bathroom for a well-deserved toilet break.

After, I heard my phone buzz from a text message. It was from Adam.

“Babe, work is over. Dinner?”

I smiled as I sent him a quick reply.

“Yep.”

I hurriedly moved to prepare myself, running to my closet to pull out a suitable outfit for dinner.

My favorite pair of shorts and a shirt that said “Grammar Nazi” on the front. I paired the clothes with my trusty light grey Crocs. My makeup followed shortly and in less than 20 minutes, I was ready.

I took the bus to meet him.

McDonald’s by the pier. Our McDonald’s.

When I saw him, his glasses were a little lopsided on his face and he wasn’t smiling. A bad day at work.

I gave him a hug when we were close together. My head was on his chest, and my nose was invaded by his alluring scent. I was instantly at peace by his perfume.

We sat side by side, just like we always did. So neither of us could take pictures of the other while eating. Soon enough, I had him smiling his amazing smile and fighting me over paternity leaves.

“No, I’m pretty sure there’s a country out there who has paternity leaves that are as long as their maternity leaves!” I argued, sticking my tongue out at him.

He rolled his eyes at me, “No there isn’t! The usual is two weeks tops!”

His eyes met mine and his arm moved to rest on my waist, pulling me closer to him. We were happy.

“Hey babe?” I asked him.

“Yeah?”

“I ran out of your perfume…”

He smiled at me and then frowned.

“That perfume is expensive! You know that babe! I’m actually considering changing scents because it would save me a lot of money.”

In that moment, the world stopped. Adam changing perfumes would be disastrous. I would have to start from scratch and say goodbye to the smell that put me to sleep every night and made me feel safe. No, this was not happening.

“YOU CAN’T!” I burst out.

He laughed at me. His arm moved from my waist to my shoulder, and he positioned his forehead to touch mine.  

“Okay, I won’t.”

Like I said, we were happy. 

--

It's been a while since I've posted or written anything. All I'm going to say is that I needed to find myself again and that took a very long time. I'm still not sure who I am but at least y'all got a story, right?