Always Have

"I did say that I don't have that 'time' especially in exploring new places." I felt my legs trembling, but not in fear. I felt my heart thumping and hoped Jacob could not hear. The galloping of the horses was faint but I know that it will be loud the longer I am with him.

He then placed his half-empty coffee mug above the table. The light smoke emanating inside its remaining heat escaped and spread across its surface. I could almost smell them, the blissful fragrance of his coffee. A light-dark fine brew of crushed coffee beans with a sweet, savory hints of cream.

"Is this the curse of being an adult?" He said. His light half-smiled face was prominently blinding. It was a signature of him, to always smile that way. Something that dated back when we were still young, and back when we were stupid.

This is the curse of being an adult. Responsibilities that you have to take care of, jobs that you have to get and work for a living, past selves that you wished that could somehow return, and memories of the old times that keep lingering yet always hoped to disappear.

I chuckled as I nodded with his reply. His beaming smirk was unwavering, like an artwork etched within my mind. The trembles of my lips didn't disappear, let alone the quality of my quaking voice. But I did not adhere, for this is just another unordinary day that will soon pass away.

"I can show you those places if you want to? Oh! here..." He grabbed his cellphone and placed it in front of me, opening his awful, unorganized list of contacts. The light of it gleamed across my face until it subsided until my reflection came into existence.

"If you may, you can add your contact number in there so I can show you around." He said. His hands slightly shook to the core. The sweat of it ran cold, damping his palms.

He looked at me with such desperation that I almost could not refuse. And I've seen this before, the look of begging. It's a personality of his to beg. Beg and have me gracefully covered over by his grasps. They were chains I've put to keep myself in, and when I put myself out I promised to never be back there again.

I guessed he found a way to slowly keep under his control. And I never minded the tightened chains, the new locks, and the missing keys.

Because I chose to be there with him, for him. And that was a long time ago, a time where freedom doesn't exist in any of my vocabularies.

I stopped again for a moment, analyzing the situation. I've noticed that I have been stoping recently. A curse I have wanted to end but never really done anything to do so.

"To tell you the truth, I've always seen you at that station. We might end up meeting there again soon. So, just in case, I think we should keep getting in touch." He continued.

I had already stopped a long time ago.

Not again.

Never again.

Or so I thought.

"You were always sitting there on the same bench where you sat earlier, writing something in your notebook with the same pen I reluctantly bought for you at the bookstore." He replied. He laughed with the thought of me going with a guy like him in such a place. It must've been embarrassing, but I couldn't see it in his face.

"Jacob?" I muttered in a nervous, cracking voice.

Moreover, I think...

"Yes?"

I think that rather than being overly embarrassed...

"Can I first ask you one question?"

Jacob's been enjoying his time with me.

"Anything for you, Zac."

A time worth spending to someone even if he could regret it one day. An irreplaceable broken glass. An irrevocable memory from the past. A series of mistakes that may trigger something in him, something that he could dare not use as a further alibi.

Nothing but the truth.

"Anything for you," Jacob whispered. It was faint and overlayed by the natural noises of the environment, but I could steal hear them; I could still feel them piercing through.

But that has to end. I just don't want to repeat the same mistakes again.

"How... did you know it's me?" I said.

The little sigh that went off his breath was the warmest. He looked at me without any signs of disappointments; the desperate look on his face deepened. His smiles were oasis on a heated desert: like a baby finally having the candy that he always wanted, or an adult having his wish finally fulfilled.

"You... Knew, huh?" He said. I gasped at what he said.

How long has it been since he knew? Or did he knew who I really am all along, all these times?

All these times.

There was silence. I could hear faint music playing in the background getting louder and louder as it seeped through every corner of the shop. I didn't even notice it until we both stopped talking to each other. It was a piano serenade of Clair de Lune. The beautiful music of Arabesque. A piece of music Brahms, Lizst, or Tchaikovsky would've composed.

"Your favorite music." He said out of nowhere. He looked at me with another painted smile, a smile I had been used to seeing every day.

Every. Day.

"What?" My lips shook to utter more words.

How could... how could he remember me?

How could he remember me?

How could he remember me?

All the sands from the non-existent hourglass stopped falling. I nearly dropped my cup of coffee. My knees rattled until it almost touched the floor. Drops of rain fell down my cheeks, the taste of its salt slipping on the side of my mouth. I could feel their warmth traveling from my cheeks until they fall to the ground.

"I love you, Zac."

Like a river flowing downstream a mountain.

Like the water falling down a faucet.

Like an outpour and storm from the clouds.

He grabbed my shaking hands and held them tight. He held it tight and he never let go.

I felt the warmth racing from his hands to mine. It was a warmth that once existed that I was forced to forget. He looked at me with a semi-melancholic smile, eyes crestfallen and almost filled with tears coming down to pour, begging for an answer to a question never intended to be said out loud.

"I always have."

His voice echoed, breaking the walls I've put between us.

I always have.