this narration will be fully written in English.

Alea’s point of view.

It has been three months since my mother passed away. I’ve been learning to live with grief and sadness, allowing them to become an inevitable part of my everyday existences. Some days are heavier than others. That’s how life supposed to works, or so people say.

Death is inevitable. So are birth and love. But why death always related to sadness and grieving? — Not always, perhaps, but most of the time. Why can’t the same be said about birth and love?

Actually, I take that back. Perhaps love, too, is intertwined with sadness. Yet, as most people would argue, love is supposed to be synonymous with happiness and joy. It is often portrayed as something ecstatic, exhilarating, and euphoric. Something that makes you feel as though the world, for once, is entirely on your side.

Anyway, I’ve probably been overthinking this far too much, I guess. The thought has somehow settled at the back of the mind, quietly lingering as I go about my days. Life goes on, after all. I continue to live mine, while I believe my father and my other siblings are just as emotionally adrift as I am. Still, my father insists that I learn to live with it. And I am. Or, at least, I am trying to. Trying to make peace with the feelings rather than constantly running away from them.

It is 8.15 p.m now and I am still sitting at my desk. My colleagues definitely would ask me bunch of questions if they were still around, but Thank God they’ve all gone home. If you’re wondering why am I here.. well, that’s a rather difficult question to answer.

I’ll give you the truthful yet simple one, I don’t want to go home.

As someone who has always cherised her independence and enjoyed living alone, suddenly finding herself under the same roof as her family again can be rather suffocating. I suppose that understandable. I used to live in an apartment in the center of Jakarta, after all. But ever since mother passed away, the rest of my family became reluctant to let me live on my own. Perhaps, because I have been dealing with my mental issue.

Hell, I am thirty-three. A grown up woman, for crying out loud eventhough sometimes I do that. But there’s no need to worry. I’ll be moving out in two months anyway. Just two more months then I’ll be free. I can manage that.

Usually whenever something like this happened, I would find myself at my bestfriend’s house. We’d spend the entire night talking about how terribly and shitty life had been treating us, exchanging complaints and unsolicited advice until the sun came up. Sadly, I still have a rather lengthy to-do-list waiting for me tomorrow, and she is currently somewhere in Europe.

I am not complaining though, Kenisha is, without a doubt, one of the beautiful, talented, compassionate and privileged woman I’ve known. She deserves every bit of happiness that comes her way.

And then there’s me.

I would describe myself as someone with remarkably low self-esteem. Ironically, my siblings and I have been rather spoiled growing up, so it’s not as though I’ve been deprived of affection or comfort. My parents was present, both physically and emotionally. Yet, somehow, that hasn’t translated into a particular healthy relationship with myself.

I am not entirely self-aware, either. More often, I have been struggling to understand what I truly want, what I need, or even what I deserve. Especially when it comes to love.. like romantic relationship, I supposed.

Perhaps, that is why I’ve never really considered love to be something meant for me. I prefer keeping things casual. No expectations, no unnecessary complications, and certainly no emotional entanglements. I am perfectly comfortable with attraction, lust and physical intimacy. Sex, too, has never been something I’ve attached too much meaning to. To me, it can be nothing more than two people indulging in mutual desire, enjoying each other’s company without having promise anything beyond the moment.

I like things uncomplicated. No strings attached, no questions about where things are going, and absolutely no expectations of forever. Predictable, even, I would say. I had convinced myself that love was something I could live perfectly without. I had built my little world around that belief, carefully avoiding anything that might threaten its balance.

At least, that’s what I used to believe. Then again, life has a rather peculiar way of proving us wrong. And mine came in the form of a man named Akhsara Mikael Marhattan.