Soaked.. in Aloe Calamansi Tea
I froze in front of the cashier. ‘What should I drink tonight?’ I murmured.
“Anything you want,” he said.
“What’s better? Matcha? Or… coffee?”
“I’d prefer matcha at this hour,” he added, yikes, 8 PM.
“One aloe calamansi tea, please.”
—
Then I breathed… exhale, inhale. I felt like I was about to throw up after eating too much catnip.
Luckily I’m not.
Unluckily, I’m not a cat.
I’m a grown-ass woman. With a broken heart. And the realization that… it was just sadness.
Not long after, he arrived. The first thing I recognized was the scent. How I wished I could drown under his skin, blend with that scent, and forget the sadness.
He smiled, “Maybe we could sit outside?”
I nodded, yeah… maybe the fresh air would do its job, ease the tension (between us) a little.
Again, I agreed, maybe air was all I needed to blow away this sick feeling in my stomach (not because of the catnip, it was sadness, once again. Or was it something else?)
He took a few minutes to order, then came back with a cup of… aloe calamansi tea.
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Do you see it?
Even when the storms were storming above our heads that day, we somehow still made the same choice, even if only inside our cups, it is aloe calamansi tea.
The rest of the conversation was all about, yes, you guessed it right… sadness. Does our BPJS cover the ultimate sadness caused by a breakup? I don’t think it does. Ugh… It hurts.
It’s not that I don’t want to share the whole conversation about that sadness in this odd little writing (that I wrote while I think about him A LOT, obviously). It’s just… it’s been almost two weeks, and I still can’t forget that even when everything felt like a storm, we both chose the same direction inside our cup.
And by that, does it mean… that we can just figure it out? Together? Or… could you? Could us?
I don’t want to stay soaked forever in this aloe calamansi tea, holding on to the memory that you are actually the one who made me love getting soaked in the rain, when I once hated it.
Could you… help me feel better? Or help us get better? Could we try to communicate better?
Because I want to leave this tangy, sweet-sour of aloe calamansi tea taste behind, and go back to the days when I can say I loved being soaked in the rain, like how I said… I love you.
