My body jerked to a frantic twitch from the horror of momentarily realization, as if the world was on fire. But when I woke up in an unfamiliar home and the violent gasp flew down to the wall of darkness without an answer or any affirmation.

The forehead throbbed mercilessly as I sat up in Junith Chamber's couch in Junith Chamber's house, a spacious home, somewhere down on The Point.

I met her husband well, met would be an inaccurate term since her husband met the ghost of my vile health, with the compliments of Percy and Jordan, whom he heard about before with nothing but their good reputation.

In spite of knowing me, he didn't object the presence of the sickening man who could be just anybody, from the scale of a drunken homeless man to a murdered from the lack of identity and deprived of character.

But he insisted on my stay.

Like the faceless gentleman he was.

My mind threw me back on to the equation of the problems that stayed cluttered but never seemed to be resolved even after hours of thoughts and uneasy pondering.

The living room was empty and the furniture were the only residents that seemed to enjoy the destitute darkness along with me but with their faces hidden.

The smell hit my nostrils, a high sniff of this home, strange but vaguely charming scent of warmth, an avowal of safety, of love and sought solitude floated all around me as everything and everyone was sleeping. In the dead of this nameless hour of the night, only the constant hum of a refrigerator was audible whilst I noticed the pictures on the hall in inky darkness.

I couldn't make out the images but they were the undoubted relics of Junith's marriage life. Still in their past togetherness and cherished memories, unforgettable incidents of love and happiness that someone like me could never know about. They had something and they still might do.

A patch of stowaway light emitted from a weak lamp that gave sight to a stairwell and also brought a picture to life where she stood in a silky gown, on the edge of a rock and her company was her husband who was not so faceless anymore.

It was natural for me to find the open patio the presented me with the view of the backstreets of this little town which slinked into a promised safety. The hallway was too vandalized with the omens of her previous, happy life with his existence in place and the living room only felt too disorientating to think.

So I sat down on the place where they might have enjoyed the same view on a thousand and one night and I was just a lonely admirer of one midnight fall.

A pair of light footsteps exclaimed its presence on the hardwood floor somewhere in the lightless house. I was too engrossed with the speech of my own mind to perform a check to see whom it was or might be before her voice gave me a startle.

" There you are. " The voice sighed a relief in a giddy tone then her familiar silhouette produced that beautiful image of Junith Chambers.

" Oh. " I exclaimed dumbly and smiled to the darkness since the crepuscular setting had made everything look more surreal than it intended to be.

" I have been looking everywhere for you. " She whipped the words and fell silent for me to speak.

" Here I am. " I coughed up a simper which gave birth to a few more unintentional croup.

" How are you feeling? "

" Absolutely terrible. " I answered with a chuckle whilst she paused to smile as the patio was now occupied by the both of us.

" I'll take you to the doctor tomorrow. " She offered as the comical prose lingered in her voice and I paid no attention to it since she came into sight. Her bare feet were kissing the surface of the grass as they broke an earthy smell into the night.

" You don't have to. I'm fine. . . it's just relapse. " I replied whilst tracking a sleepless moth that spiked the air with ecstasy as it chased some invisible prey.

I only stared back at her since she was waiting for me to talk about something unimportant, possibly about her home, the neighborhood, this patio, the weather or the Parsons. Small talks about silly things like adults are known to do, but it all went away when I spotted her gown on the swivel of my head.

The piece of a buttery attire that covered her except that bright little splash of skin near the neck.

" I wouldn't come if I knew you would be here. To be honest, I seem . . . uninvited. "

" Why not? " She inquired coolly as she dispersed the look at the dead street line in view.

" I dunno. I can't put my finger around it . . . but I feel like we have changed . . . shifted. Like I crossed a line. "

" Please, Dion. " She quickly shifted a smirk. " You haven't done anything like that. "

" I'm just . . . stubborn. I think I know more than everyone then try to fix their lives like . . . I am some assigned God. "

I had made a worrying habit of apologizing to her but I couldn't blame myself properly since when I see her face clearing as the darkness adjust to our visions in the night.

" Are you talking about Percy and Jordan? "
" I'm talking about everyone. About you too. I need to go away.change. "

Change.

It was always one of those things in life I had been afraid of and never advocated it in any aspect. Even though in this year, everything in my life were subject to change without my permission, almost became entitled to flip it all over as it falls to a new design.

The midnight bugs were immune to my gloomy epiphany as a selective orchestra of crackles and whizzes buzzed out in and around the sleepy house.

I felt her slowly inching towards me as she conquered the long distance of the patio and ended up only at an arm's distance. A slight hint of perfume poured out into the immediate air as I made a plan of my escape.

" You don't have to say it all over again. " She started of mystically as I fell into the constant gaze that held the aura of knowing everything in my naked soul.

" But is it true?

Do you really love me? "

The sudden embarrassment crept upon me as my face emitted a nervous heat as I mumbled.

" When . . . when did I say that? " I asked despite of knowing the possibility of the answer.

" You were sleeping in the back seat . . . just after we left the diner. I was there . . . when you mumbled a lot of things. With it. "

I broke off the gaze and found myself at the exciting, inexplicable stalemate since the ghost of myself expressed what I have been thinking but at this point where it had gone too late and too far away.

" It's true. " I replied as I guiltily looked down. The usual roles that Junith and I played were switched since I was the one stuck with the social crime.

With every passing silent moments, my heart quivered and plunged the blood on every cell in my body with the dire urgency to receive her reaction. But I could not ignore the cynical answer that stood tall in my mind's attic.

" Why? "

" What kind of question is that, Junith? "

" Fair enough. " She stroked a simple, arrogant pout and then continued the trial of silence even though I hated the air when it was not filled with the madness of honesty.

" You remember the wedding? " I blew the words with an anxious sigh of defeat.

" That one? At that. . .country club? "

" Hmm. " She acknowledged with no special interest in me and carried on with her eyes overseeing the fascinating empty back lot of the streets.

" I don't remember what I did, exactly how I got home because all I could think of was our conversation. " I started and my beginning on something so distant and apathetically relevant drew her in despite of her head being turned away from me.

" Then I went to work the next day. And when Mrs. Wilson went away crying for her marriage, I didn't pity her anymore. Didn't feel annoyed or bluntly disturbed.

I couldn't even get myself to drown a drink that weekend.

I felt what she had felt. Her marriage, the safety of a paradise was gone forever. "

This had induced her to grant me with a look of confuse as her mouth confounded it's curved lips into saying something but fell short of what to say.

" I realized there's nothing to life if I sit in my own cave and swipe everything and everyone away for the possibility of pain. That's not living anymore. That's just passing this week, then it becomes this month, then before I would know it, I'm the walking, talking sight of misery that everyone always fears of turning into.

You changed me. "

The buzzed orchestra of the phantom bugs that disappeared from sight but existed along everything else, visible and invisible. Like thoughts and silence, it hovered across our minds when the world fell uninteresting to me for some brief minutes as no one emitted a sound rather than the daily symphony of passing Oxygen.

I waited for her to speak but she proved to have other thoughts in her mind since no one felt the gravity to transform their pondering to understandable verses.

" What now? " I asked her as I lifted my head to find her face in a deciphered smile.

" Nothing. " She answered bluntly and turned her head away as the long loose strands of her hair fell down to hide her reaction.

" Nothing? " I inquired again without hiding the sharp click of my surprise.

" That's . . . underwhelming. "

" So, what should I say to match your mind? " She burst out as the voice rippled through the parallel darkness and disturbed the serene entities of the open front view before it disappeared and blended into the night.

" What do you expect to hear? " She asked again in a low, miffed voice.

" What you make of it. " I mumbled the answer as the pain stricken disposition of her face longed for a stay the disappeared. " The truth would be nice. "

I could imagine the screech of her soul as it debated, not for me since in the cynical colored mind of mine, no one in this world was cruel nor kind enough to present a bundle of affection to me. But the turmoil emitted itself to put the jaded, adulterated emotions and secretive prose into a proper tied up knot.

" Do you want me to say I love you too? "

" I would like to hear you say it. But would that be a lie? "

" I don't know, Dion. " She tipped me a graceful smile, a wry look that had the ripeness of life, a certain parody of happiness that one could be dead sure of when they spot that little creases along the lips which were too distinct in the entrance of runaway light.

I let myself down on the soft pastel of grass, appeased and subdue to a mild, mellow touch. It was easy to say that, in the morning, from the rigid sunlight it would grow crisp and the grass would lose its touch of kindness for a while. But on the coming of the night, it would produce the shearing awe of high opulence from kissing one's skin.

Much like what she had become in my life.

Momentarily, I was scared that the row must have been loud enough to distress someone enough to conjour them away from the warmth of their sleep. But no one seemed to care enough to wander around the dark house with investigating eyes.

I sat down beside her with the expectation set to high and my disposition crafting all kinds of question without hesitating to ask.

I was surprised to find her touching the grated skin of my hand as she launched a simper.

It was no puzzle.

She must have been ready.

" It's cruel to say this to you. Because of how you are. How you become. " She began as her fingers entwined itself in the cusp, the palm of her smooth skin existed proudly and in the haze of a dream as she slowly closed the gap of distance.

" But I belong to someone already and he belongs to me. " The confession started.

The ball started to roll.

And the premature happiness, the coaxing of my heart gently demoted itself to a slow rhythm.

" I was a complete sap in the recent days. I'm not too keen to play the blame game. But you were right. Company does rub off on you. "

" What do you mean? " I inquired quickly as I unintentionally gripped her hand too tightly.

" Don't be alarmed. It's not you. Nor Jordan or Percy. They are the best thing that happened to me. Lately. "

" I don't understand. " I spelled out.

" I have been around weddings too much. And that posh, that society of high nosed . . . people with their delicious gossips. You were right the first time you told me that divorce sounds easy and simple but it isn't. "

I had nothing to say since my mind spent the energy of will to figure out what she intended to say in the muddy description of her own mind.

" I saw someone getting married and I was happy because I knew her. Then she broke it off and got married again in a year. And it got me thinking. Then it got me questioning. It's too simple for them. Because they don't have a conscious like you. "

" You mean, like you. "

" And you know how the rest of the story goes. Because you have been there. I never told anyone about this. And I never told him. Because then he'll start to have second thoughts.

And we'll all be misunderstood and sad. "

" Like me. "

She desired to let a comforting word soothe me but found nothing believable to say as she shifted uneasily. A signal; as I let go off her hand.

" Hmph. " I grunted after a moment when she had finished saying what she intended but even though she was yearning to hear my yearn or a confession, let's call it that, it did not come. Just emitted a dumb noise that was my voice, in a petrified, calm tune of longing.

" When I'll be back to York, I'll just find our ghosts dancing around the city.

And then I'll see them in office halls and apartment doors, being unnervingly argumentative. "

She sprouted a soundless smile, with guilt written all over it.

" Will you be okay with that? Being a ghost in my life? "

" Only if you let me become one. "

" I liked hearing you argue, seeing you swat my words away in the way only you can. "

I hushed the words, like it was a song that bubbled up in my mind and always promised me not to go away.

" I know it sounds strange but I enjoyed the debate. It gave me the idea that we were married. I love that idea. "

The trial of not catching a glimpse of her failed as the night buzzed the wind in the general direction of the woman and the visible fly drifted to her as I helplessly watched.

" I love that idea, more than anything. Of being married to you. "

Everything was said. The curtains were as open as the sky and the stage was filled with the words of us. I recalled everything as she breathed beside me in her natural tone.

She had won. The war was over. Morality prevailed. From now on, she'll find no rumors believable enough, no man attractive enough in the measure of outer shell nor intelligence; no concept or idea profound enough to fall for.

She shredded her skin to the new, evolved, best version of Junith Chamber she could be in the current stage of her life.

" I wish I wasn't so rational. I wish I was more dumb and brave enough to do something. To change your mind. " I professed, looking back at her as she gazed in response.

" I'm glad you are. I'm grateful that you are that sort of liar who tries to consider himself as bad but acts the opposite. " She announced with a smile as her hand fell on mine.

" But I won't be happy now, would I? "

" Why wouldn't you be? "

" Since the wedding, I took you as the kind of woman who held my Universe together just with her frail, smart mind. You still are. And even if you weren't, I would rather be miserable with you than anyone else in this big blue. "

The only consolation she could give me was a squeeze as our hands stayed clasped for a little while.

" You might not know it, Dion. But you helped me more than you can ever imagine.That's what I like about you. You're honest. You're not a pretender. You're better than the rest of them. "

I understood what she had designed to say even though she did not say it out loud.

I reached out my hand again and this time no hesitant shiver, shrieked insider her before she held it and we let the Big Blue World rotate as a thin glow of a line appeared at some distant corner with the promise of a new day's sun.

I wouldn't limit myself in the cruel boundaries of being a martyr, I thought.

" I'm glad you are in this weird part of my life. " She whispered huskily as she leaned forward to my side and I felt the extravagant bustle of a lost happiness, that returned from a distant land and then disappeared, when her lips produced a viscous kiss on my cheek.

The moment had paralyzed me since in the rippling excitement became persistent of providing any action of myself as I sat down and felt her peck without subsiding to the magnetism of kissing back.

She lingered near me for a moment in a strong agonizing gaze as I spoke in my hushed, confused, divided cynicism.

" It doesn't feel enough to be a martyr. "

" Dion. " She gasped in her husk voice without pulling away.

" Why can't we, Junith? " I pleaded once again as I leaned closer till our foreheads were prodding each other and the whole world was her with the enchanting smell as it bellowed from every inch of her face.

" I'll leave everything. To be honest, I have nothing much to abandon anyway. "

" You don't mean that. What about Percy and Jordan? "

" They don't need me. They need more unforgettable summer vacations. In fact . . . I'll trade them for you. I'll trade this Dion Montgomery for you. "

" Let's. " I said one last time before her smile corrupted me as she caressed my cheek softly before drifting away.

Then the night drew into a nameless conclusion as her gown gleamed one last time in proud allurement, of what everything it could be, of a different route my life could take, a different life I could live as a happy man and in cherished company.

And she disappeared into the darkness.

For a limitless amount of time which we graciously know as " Forever " .